


Wishing you all a Good Evening

by thejilyship



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marauders - Fandom, jily - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College AU, College Football, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, jily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-06-15 07:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15408027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejilyship/pseuds/thejilyship
Summary: Despite his popularity on campus, James Potter has had a hard time getting the attention of one, Lily Evans. Lily's not impressed by him and his arrogance, but James is quite impressed with everything Lily does. After the blunder that was their first meeting, James is determined to change her mind and she's determined not to let him. College!AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! So you might be here because you've never read this story before, and if so, then welcome! I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you love this story and that you have a good time reading it!
> 
> You might also be here because this was favorited and you got an email saying that it had been updated or edited or something and wanted to know what that's about since this was a completed fic, yeah? Well I re-read it a week ago and decided that it needed some updating. So I edited it and rewrote bits of it and I'm so much more pleased with it than I was and I hope that you will be too. There are not a lot of major changes until the last couple of chapters, but it's all a lot cleaner than it was before. 
> 
> Anyway, if you're here to read, have a good time and don't forget to review!

Lily Evans had been working in the UCL news department since she first came to university, and two years later, she was one of the lead anchors on the cable access news program that ran from six to seven three evenings a week.

She had first joined because her best friend Mary had decided at the time, that she really wanted to be a news anchor. But then Mary decided that maybe she wanted to be a zoologist and got a job at the local zoo. Lily decided to stay at the news station.

Over the last two years, she'd found that she very much enjoyed being in front of and behind the camera. And working for the station was a very low risk way to get experience. She heard from one of the professors who worked in the department, that there were only about twelve people who regularly watched their news program. And Lily could guess which twelve professors remembered to tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

"And that's been the news," Her co-host said with a brilliantly dazzling smile. She’d always thought it was a bit much.

"We do have one more announcement to make however," Lily said with a practiced lilt to her voice. Mary made fun of what she called Lily's 'television voice.' But Lily knew that everyone who had ever been put in front of a camera had a different way of talking than when they were off screen. Mary included.

"Yes, this is actually going to be my last broadcast," His name was Amos and Lily had never really liked him, though she could appreciate that he had a certain presence about him. And that's why he'd been picked up by a public news station that reached more than twelve people. "Starting Monday morning, you can find me working as a junior anchor over at Good Morning London." She could hear how proud of himself he was, and she tried to remember that people were allowed to be proud of themselves, that he  _should_ be proud of himself. He hadn't even graduated yet and he was a junior anchor on a highly rated show. Just because he was a dick didn’t mean that he couldn’t be proud of his success.

"We'll miss you around here, Amos."

"Of course you will," He said, which wasn't what they had scripted, but Lily kept smiling. "I'm the best thing about this show." Lily's brows shot up a bit and then Amos laughed. "Only joking, it's been a pleasure."

"Thank you," She said a bit more tersely. "Wishing you all a good evening, I'm Lily Evans."

"And I'm Amos Diggory." And then the red light went off and Lily pushed herself away from the desk.

"There was no need to be a git, Diggory."

"What does it matter, only twelve people saw it." He shrugged his shoulders in a way that made Lily want to throttle him and then started walking away. Lily wasn't the only one that knew their show didn't have a wide audience of course. It was a running joke among most of the members of the crew. But even if there were less than twenty people (out of the thirty thousand that went to school at UCL) Lily still wanted to make sure that it went over perfectly. Or as close to perfectly as she could get it.

She pulled her hair up into a loose plait and started towards her 'dressing room' of sorts. It was actually just a closest that had all the jackets and blazers that the people who were going on air wore, but when she'd become an anchor and started staying later most nights to work on different pieces for the show, the space had just sort of become hers. Not officially of course, but Amos had always found it annoying that she had a designated space and he didn't. He picked his backpack up off the couch that was behind the camera and left without saying much to anyone.

Lily sat down at her desk and pulled out a notebook, making a few notes that she could remember from the show, and then headed towards the breakroom to get a coffee before she sat down with Marlene McKinnon and Emmett Dackery to re-watch the show. It was Friday, and most people were going out, but that's what Saturdays were for in her mind. Friday nights were spent working on and perfecting their show.

"It was a great run," Marlene said, pulling her glasses down from her almost insanely bushy hair and pushing them up the bridge of her nose. She picked up a coffee mug and filled it for herself as Lily did the same. "Apart from Amos being terrible that is, but this was the last time. He’s someone else’ problem now."

"I could probably catch up with him before he reaches his car and give his new viewers something to look at for Monday." Emmett offered, though it was all in jest. Emmett was well over six feet tall, with a very large stature, but the only time he ever hurt anyone was when he was playing rugby.

"Oh please do it," Marlene sighed as she started walking down the corridor. Lily and Emmett followed. "I can't stand him and his pompous attitude. He drives me nuts."

"He's a ponce." Lily agreed, albite with a bit more vulgarity. "But he's gone now, like you said."

"He is gone now. Which means that we're going to have to go through our last round of auditions on Sunday." Emmett reminded them all. Amos had left earlier than he’d told them he would, so they were in a rush to find a replacement now.

"You couldn't allow me a moment of reprieve?" Lily asked, sighing as she thought about the audition process to come. It would be long and tedious, and they would probably have to settle on someone that wasn’t all that great just so that Lily wouldn’t have to do the show by herself.

"There is no reprieve when we only have one anchor." Marlene pointed out.

"He was supposed to be here next week." Lily muttered, pushing open a door at the end of the corridor and taking a seat in front of the computer. Their station wasn't all that well funded, but they made do with what they had rather splendidly. Two cameras, one new computer, three older ones, a greenscreen (that had once been a world map, but Lily and Marlene had painted over it) and a few other odds and ends.

"I know, but now this was his last show and we're going to have to find his replacement sooner." Marlene ran a hand through her hair and then pulled up a wheelie chair next to Lily. Emmett did the same and the three of them proceeded to watch through their show, make notes of ways to improve and talk about their potential new anchor for their Monday show.

"You could just do it on your own until we find someone who fits." Emmett suggested.

Lily shook her head, "I don't think Professor Flitwick would like that. The point of the show is to give people an opportunity to try and if we waited for perfection he might intervene." Normally their professor was a hands-off kind of guy and Lily liked it that way. "Though you know, you could always be my co-anchor." She grinned, leaning closer to him and giving him her best 'oh-please-would-you' smile.

Emmett shook his head and laughed. "You know that I can only be here during Friday and Monday's shows. You need someone who can be here for all three shows." Lily sighed and looked over at Marlene, though she'd be beating a dead horse if she asked again.

"Don't look at me." Marlene said in leu of answering the unasked question and Lily sighed.

"Alright, so you two are useless and I have no co-host."

"There are people coming in on Sunday."

"I know I know, but that's the day before the first show we do in a post-Amos world." She sighed, running a hand through her hair and pulling out her ponytail, only to put it back up again. "And I'd like a bit more time to prepare-" Just then there was a loud cheering that came from the main room down the hall.

"You think they put on the football game?" Marlene asked Emmett, since Lily had no interest in any of the school sports.

"They usually do." He nodded, leaning back in his chair to try and hear what was going on.

"Five more minutes of footage and then I'll release you." Lily assured him with a smile.

"Five more minutes. You can have ten if you'd like." He smirked, and Lily shook her head.

"Just five will do," She jotted down another note, her page now entirely full of things to go over on their Sunday meeting. "I really am dreading Sunday."

"I know," Marlene said. "But I'll bring you one of those donuts you like from that café by the river-"

"And I'll be here." Emmett winked, causing both girls to chuckled. He was a nice bloke, always flirting and causing a laugh.

"Well with donuts and Emmett, I should be able to get through anything." Lily nodded, ex-ing out of the program now that they'd finished watching everything except Amos being a dick. Lily didn't need to see that again.

" _POTTER! POTTER! POTTER!"_ Came a cheer from down the hall and Emmett jumped to his feet.

"I love you both, but I have to go and see what's happening." He raced off and Lily and Marlene waved him off.

"You know, I think we should revamp the website." Lily mused, adding another note to her paper.

"You suggest doing that at least once a month. You’ll have to get in touch with the school newspaper again and I don’t know if they’ll appreciate being told that you think the color scheme is wrong _again._ "

"Well I don't much like it." She shrugged. "We'll get it there though." She grinned. "Do you have plans for tonight?" Marlene nodded.

"I do actually. Benjy and Bertram invited me to go to this 'Art in the Dark' thing over in Hyde Park. Apparently, everyone's going to get high and draw with chalk all over the pavement." She shrugged.

Lily laughed and nodded, "Sounds like something Mary would be into."

"How is she anyway, I haven't seen her in a while."

"She's good," Lily shrugged. "Busy. She's pre-med now. I think this one will stick."

"Oh." Marlene put a hand over her heart. "Our little flower child is growing up."

"You're the flower child, Mary is more the wild child."

"And what does that make you?" Marlene asked, standing up and reaching for her bag that she'd ditched in the corner of the room before the show started.

Lily pursed her lips and shrugged one of her shoulders. "I am and always have been the mum friend." She said. "Don't forget to drink water after you get drunk tonight and text me when you get home."

Marlene chuckled and leaned over to kiss Lily's cheek. "Will do love. You're not just going home are you? Because you can come with me if you want."

"Oh no, I have plans."

"Library plans?" She asked, raising a brow.

"No, actual plans." Lily said, though she remained vague since she didn't actually have plans. Marlene accepted that Lily was not going to tell her whatever her plans are and left with a smile and promised to see her on Sunday. Lily took her time packing up, making sure that everything is in its proper place or turned off before locking up the 'production room' and heading back to the main stage. They used an old projector to watch the game on the wall where the green screen normally was. Every Friday they watched the games, and every Friday, Lily left before they were over.

She used to like football. It had been something she'd played as a kid and in secondary school and she'd gone to too many games to count with her dad. Now that he was no longer here to share in the excitement with her… well she had other things to focus on.

She waved to a few people on her way out and then started towards the train station. She didn't have a car, and didn't care to have one. She didn't think there was much use of a car while living in London. Especially as a student, when the furthest place she would have to go on a daily basis was normally within walking distance of her flat.

She felt her phone buzz in her pocket as she reached the train station. She pulled it out and saw that she had four texts from Mary.

_Mary: Don't hate me._

_Mary: Our fish is dead._

_Mary: Also, we're out of milk._

_Mary: Also, also, I invited a few people over to watch the game._

There was about an hour in between the last three. Lily was a notoriously terrible texter. She couldn't even blame it on the fact that she'd just been doing a show, because she could have been doing anything and the thought to check her phone just wouldn't have dawned on her. Her phone was mainly used to call her mum and to make sure her drunk friends made it home alright.

Lily re-read Mary's texts as she sat down on the train and narrowed her brow.

_Lily: We don't have a fish?_

_Lily: Also you're lactose intolerant?_

_Mary: Okay well I found a dead fish in our flat. And my girlfriend is not and drank it all because she's a twat_

_Lily: Well that raises some questions. And You really do know how to pick 'em_

_Mary: Are you sure we didn't have a fish? And you can't be mean. Em is great_

_Lily: Positive. Ask your girlfriend about it._

_Lily: I can be mean. It's what I do best._

_Mary: Lies. Completely lies._

_Lily: Home in five_

oOoOoOo

Lily found herself crammed onto her sofa between Emmeline Vance (Mary's twat girlfriend who actually wasn't a twat, but a very nice girl who Lily actually liked quite a bit) and Dorcas Meadows. Hestia and Gwenog Jones were there as well. Lily was glad that Mary hadn't been lying when she'd said that she'd invited a 'few' people over. She'd said that before and Lily had walked into a full-blown party. And they didn't have room for that. But this was nice. She liked these girls.

"Jesus, that boy is fit." Hestia rested her chin on her palm and sighed longingly.

"Are you staring at Potter's arse?" Gwen asked, giving her cousin a look. "Because we're going to see him tomorrow and I'll tell him that you're at it again."

"Oh, come off it. You know he's fit." Hestia and Gwen both played football for the girl's league. Apparently on Saturdays the boys and girls practiced together. “And _he_ knows he’s fit. I hardly think he’d fault me for looking at his arse.”

"Okay I won't tell James, I'll tell your boyfriend." Gwen threatened.

Hestia sat up straight, leaned over and shoved Gwen off the couch. The older girl fell onto the floor and Lily laughed into her drink. "My boyfriend knows that James is fit. Everyone in the bloody school knows he's fit." She said indignantly, pushing herself to her feet.

"He's not  _that_  fit." Lily shrugged, and suddenly all eyes were on her. She sighed and pushed her way off the couch. "Okay he's fit but he's not as fit as everyone makes him out to be. Like there are blokes who are better looking. But everyone just ogles him simply because he’s good at football."

"Being good at football makes you better looking than you already are," Emmeline said, as though that explained it all. “It’s like bonus points. You know, like if you’re holding a puppy or a baby?”

"I understand that some of you feel that way, but I think being a nice bloke, not having your head up your arse and being able to hold an actual conversation about something  _other_ than football makes you more attractive."

"You had one conversation with the boy  _two_ years ago." Mary sighed, "You have to stop bringing it up."

"He was sloshed." Dorcas chimed in.

"And none of you are friends with him- with the exception of Gwen," She said before the girl could protest. "So you can't tell me that he's not as conceited as his twitter feed would lead one to believe."

Emmeline shrugged, "I always read his tweets as though he's trying to be funny. When he writes, 'Who's the greatest center forward of all time?' he's just being cute. Not conceited."

“Also he is the greatest center forward of all time.” Dorcas grinned.

Lily pursed her lips and shook her head. "He tweeted out yesterday 'Aren't you all so lucky to have me?' with a photo of his stats. How did that not make you throw up a little in your mouth?"

"Okay that's not really cute," Emmeline laughed, "But we  _are_ lucky to have him."

"All I'm saying is that a little humility would go a long way."

They couldn't really argue with that, but Mary did anyway. "You're just pissed because Amos was a little bitch on air today."

"You saw that?" Lily sighed, forgetting about James all together and went off about Amos, which they let her, until the commercials ended, and the game came back on. Mary motioned her over to the kitchen and leaned up against the counter.

"You alright?" She asked.

"Yeah, I'm just going to be stressed out this weekend. I should be completely fine or infinitely worse come Monday night." She grinned, and Mary reached out and pinched her cheek.

"You really like, Em?" She asked, looking over at the couch and biting on the tip of her thumb, a nervous habit of hers. "Because what you said over text-"

"Mary, I was just giving you a hard time." Lily interrupted. "She's great. Even if she drank all the milk. It's probably for the best since I never finish a carton and we end up with spoiled milk." She smiled. "She's a nice girl and she seems to like you."

"She does seem to like me," Mary smirked. "And I think I really like her too."

"Good." Lily laughed. "Now did you really find a dead fish in our flat?"

oOoOoOo

They went out after the game, which Lily had been expecting. They all got ready- Lily lent some clothes to a couple of the girls and Mary did almost everyone's makeup after insisting that she knew what she was doing since she'd been watching nothing but makeup tutorials on YouTube for the past week.

"I'm thinking of making my own channel." She said, though she'd already had three beers by this point, and as a rather small girl, three beers was enough for her to properly buzzed and boarding tipsy, so no one took her seriously, but since they were buzzed as well, they were enthusiastic about the idea.

When they finally made it to a pub, Lily was surprised to see that it was packed. This was their usual place, and while it could get busy, this was a bit much. Even for a Friday night. After the game, everyone usually went to a pub closer to campus. This pub was out by their flat, and yet it was packed with college age kids, and many of them looked as though they were coming from the game, wearing face paint or jerseys.

They got some drinks, miraculously found a table and then headed out to the dancefloor. Mary and Em were the first to disappear and then Hestia's boyfriend materialized. Gwen found someone to dance with and then Dorcas excused herself to use the restroom. Lily stumbled back to her table, feeling almost relaxed now that she'd have quite a bit to drink. Her mind always seemed to be buzzing and it was rather hard to get it to quite down, but a night out helped. The roar of the music and laughter made it hard for her brain to concentrate on anything but what was right in front of her.

"Is this seat taken?" She looked over, already rolling her eyes at the tired line.

"Yes, all the seats around this table that have jackets and purses on them are in fact, taken. Shocking, isn't it." She asked, raising her brow. But then she looked at the bloke who had spoken and her brows shot up even further.

"Coats and purses are inanimate. I don't think they'll be bothered if I get off my feet for a few. After all, I have been pretty busy all night." James Potter smirked at her as he took Mary's empty seat. He had a beer in his hand, his hair was all mused from the events of the night and he wore a smile that made it seem as though he and Lily were friends. Which they weren't. Lily was more than a little surprised to see him sitting there. She'd had a few classes with him over the years and knew that he had a way of making himself at home wherever he was, but they hadn't spoken to one another in two years. And even then, it had only been one conversation- and a short one. That had gone very poorly.

"They won't mind, but I might." She said, shifting in her seat.

"But you might not," He said, still smiling at her. He reached up and pulled at the collar of his shirt, the fabric sticking, parts of it grass stained.

"You didn't think to shower before coming out?" She asked, most likely because she was on her third drink of the night and it was clear that he hadn't decided to take a shower between winning the football game and coming out with his mates. Or alone. She didn't see anyone that seemed to be waiting for him to come back. Though at least his presence at the pub explained why there were so many people there. He must have told a bunch of people where he was headed after the game.

"I thought about it, but then decided that it'd be a waste of water. No one has ever left a pub thinking that they didn't need to shower. Then there's the fact that I look rather sharp in my uniform." He grinned, leaning a bit closer and Lily could smell the alcohol on his breath mixed with the smell of sweat. It was a common smell for someone in a pub to have, but she still leaned back. "Beside, people like to get pictures of me in my jersey."

She narrowed. "Alright, so then why did you decide to sit down here?" She asked. They were surrounded by people who would love to be graced with his presence, but Lily was not among them.

He met her gaze and held it for a moment before turning his head and looking around the bar. "You really don't like me, do you? You know, I think you might just be the only person on campus." Lily snorted. "Alright, not the  _only_ person. But one of the only girls." He said, looking back at her again.

"It's not that I don't like you," Lily said, because she didn't dislike him, she didn't really know him. She knew that she couldn't judge a person on one drunk conversation that was held years ago. And while he was a bit arrogant online… well, a lot of people acted one way online and a different way in real life. "I just don't think that being able to kick a ball around a field should award you special privileges. I'm not going to act like we're friends just because I've heard your name a million times. I'm treating you as though you were any other annoying bloke who decided that they can sit on my friends' coats for the sake of chatting me up."

"Oh, so that's it, is it.  _You_ can't play football." He smirked, nudging his elbow against hers and completely ignoring the latter half of what she'd said.

Lily pulled her arm off the table and shook her head. "I can play fairly well actually, that has nothing to do with anything." She sighed. He narrowed his eyes at her and then took another swig of his beer.

"Saying you play fairly well to someone who plays-"

"At a collegiate level. Which most people do. My dad played football at uni."

"Saying you play fairly well to someone who plays  _as well as I do_ ," He repeated himself, adding emphasis where he deemed appropriate. "Is often taken as a challenge. Is this where I invite you to the field and see if you can score on me?"

She looked at him, catching the way his lilt changed when he said 'score.' "No."

"You wanna dance?" He asked completely unperturbed. Lily laughed, shaking her head. The nerve of this boy.

"I'm good, I'm just waiting for my friend to come back from the loo." But as she said that, she saw that Dorcas had found someone else to dance with on her way back to the table. That didn't mean that Lily wanted to dance with James though.

"Are you sure? I'm a great dancer," He grinned, taking another drink of his beer.

"I'm getting the feeling that you think you're great at everything." Again, he didn't seem to notice what she was saying.

"I think people would like it if we dance." He said and that piqued Lily's curiosity.

"What? Why would other people care if I danced with you?"

He shrugged. "You've got quite a presence on campus. A very different presence than my own, but you have almost as many twitter followers as I do." Lily shook her head.

"I run the twitter for the school news station." She said shrugging. It was different, though she knew that being connected with the news station wasn't the reason that she had so many followers. But what else was she going to say? That everyone knew her because of all the different classes she took? Because of all the different clubs and activities, she'd taken a part of over the years?

"You use your own handle though." She could tell that he wasn't buying it. She wondered if he followed her. She would have noticed that though, right? Probably not. She rarely checked her phone.

"Well that's because no one pays any attention when you preface a message with UCL News. I wanted people to listen so-"

"It's funny. That's what I was getting at." He grinned. "You're funny."

"On twitter."

"Not in real life?"

"No I mean, you came up to me to ask me to dance because you're impressed by my twitter? Everyone is funny on twitter." She laughed.

"I didn't ask you to dance because of your twitter."

"Well then why did you ask me to dance?" She asked, though she wished she hadn't almost immediately. When you asked a boy that you didn't want to dance with that question, you never got an answer that you knew what to do with.

"Because you're fit and I want to dance with you." He shrugged, surprising her with his bluntness. "Have you changed your mind yet?"

"No," She said, though she could feel herself becoming less annoyed and more amused by the minute. "You know, you're a bit ridiculous."

"I've been called worse," He shrugged, still smirking at her. Lily laughed again, not at all surprised by that. "See, I make you laugh! The least you could do is dance with me."

Lily pressed her lips together and shook her head. "I'm almost drunk first of all," She said, holding up a finger, "So I'll laugh at anything. And secondly," Another finger. "The least I could do is not dance with you. It's continue to talk to you even though you came over here and took my friend’s seat without invitation."

He opened his mouth and then closed it a few times before bringing his drink up to his lips and Lily looked away feeling triumphant. "Just how bad of an impression did I leave on you?" He asked, looking over at her and bringing up the first time they'd interacted for the first time since he'd sat down. Lily was surprised that he even remembered it in the first place. "I mean Remus said that I was a right prat that night, and I believe him, but I figured you might not remember since it happened so long ago."

"Who's Remus? Because he has the right of things." Lily said, taking another sip of her drink.

"He usually does. He actually works for the school newspaper." He said, "You work with the newspaper, right?"

Lily shrugged, "If we're doing a big piece we collaborate sometimes." She nodded. "But I don't normally- I mean I've not personally been in that part of the building that many times."

He nodded, "Well he told me that coming over here was a bad idea." She looked over at him.

"Then why did you do it anyway?"

"Sirius said that I had to," He shrugged and then made a face and shook his head. Lily wasn’t sure what all of that meant, or why one of his friends would tell him that he _had_ to do something, or why James seemed as though he had to listen. "He said that you wouldn't remember that I'd made an arse of myself last time. Though he agreed that I'd made an arse of myself last time. And then Peter suggested that if I came over here, I'd make an arse of myself again. I took it as a challenge, but maybe I should have taken it as a warning."

Lily didn't know who Remus or Sirius or Peter were, but they all sounded like they had good heads on their shoulders. "Why do you remember talking to me two years ago?" She asked. "I remember it because everyone is always talking about you and to be quite honest, I've not had too many run-ins with blokes who've talked to me like that."

"Well that's good," He chuckled, rubbing his hand at the back of his neck. "I don't know what I was going for, but I guess saying I'm drunk isn't exactly an excuse. I'm sorry." He said, looking her in the eye again. She pursed her lips and finished her drink. "I don't normally talk to people like that."

"Well thank you for apologizing," She said, not sure what else she should say on the matter. "Did Gwen say something to you?" She asked, not sure what had spurred this. "Is that why you're here?"

"You know Gwen?" He asked, brightening up a bit now that he was no longer trying to look contrite for his apology.

"Obviously, since I just ask you if she talked to you." She said, wishing that she hadn't finished her drink already. James noticed her fiddling with an empty glass and jumped to his feet.

"I'll get you another drink," He said, looking even more lit up now that he'd set a task for himself.

"You don't need to-" But he was already on his way to the bar and Lily closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. She wasn't sure what was going on. Why was James Potter sitting next to her at a pub after one of his games? Why was he apologizing to her and buying her drinks and asking her to dance with him?

He came back with a new drink for both of them and Lily thanked him, still feeling a bit off kilter. She looked around, waiting to see one of her friends giving her some sort of single to let her know that they were behind this.

"So, do you like working at the station?" He asked, re-taking Mary's seat for himself, this time angling himself more toward Lily, who was still sitting facing forward.

"Yes, I do like it."

"It must be fun to get to be on the telly every other night." He grinned.

"I enjoy it." She nodded, looking over at him and trying to gauge what was going through his mind. It wasn't uncommon for blokes to try and chat her up when she was out at a pub, but he seemed a bit more persistent than usual. And it wasn't as though he didn't have other options. Other options who wouldn't be giving him clipped short responses because they couldn't figure out why he hadn't left yet.

"Do you- I mean I know that you're an anchor, but do you help with the writing of the show too? Or is that a different job?"

It was public knowledge that she was an anchor, as she did have quite a few people following her on twitter, and she posted clips of the broadcast quite frequently. Even if only twelve people watched, she was still proud of the work that her team did. "I do a bit of everything." She said, "I'm digital media student and so I like to try my hand at all the different parts."

"I really liked the story you all did about the- oh what was it- top ten places to nap in the library. I know it was just a fun little piece, but it was funny," He laughed. "And I totally agree with you about the best place to get coffee on campus. Definitely Hoppers."

She sat up straighter and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "You- You watch the show?" She asked, not sure exactly what it was she was feeling in that moment. Confusion seemed to be a theme of this conversation.

"Oh yeah," He nodded. "I'm a student at UCL aren't I? Why wouldn't I watch it?"

It was Lily's turn to gap for a moment and then she shook her head. "No one watches it." She said. "Well twelve people watch it actually, but that's basically no one and you're telling me that  _you_ watch the show."

"Twelve people?" He raised his brow, surprised to hear that. "That doesn't seem right."

"We get a few hundred views on the clips I post to twitter, but only twelve people watch the actual broadcast." She repeated. "Only twelve people sit down and watch the entire broadcast and you're telling me that you're one of them?"

He shifted in his chair now. "Well I don't catch  _every_ episode. It's the Friday one's that I normally miss since were right before our game- but it's always on in the locker room."

"Is it the only channel that you get?" She was aghast.

He laughed and shook his head, "No, it's just what we have on. You have a good show-"

"I know that it's a good show." She said, putting her hands up. "My surprise isn't because I think that we don't have a good show. We all do a great job with editing and writing and I'm even impressed with the lighting most nights. But no one watches. Working for UCL News is to get experience and learn how everything works more than anything else. Amos used a few reels for his resume, but- You really watch?"

"I'm quite glad that Amos is done." James sighed, ignoring her repeated question as he'd already answered it. "The two of you were always professional, but he was so stiff half the time and he never delivered the lines right when the two of you were trying to have a bit of repartee on air." Lily couldn't say anything to that. She agreed of course, he was right, but she couldn't say anything because she was still flabbergasted that James Potter of all people, watched the show.

"Who's going to be on now that he's gone?" He asked.

Lily shrugged, clearing her throat so she could speak. "I'm not sure yet. He was supposed to be here through the end of the upcoming week, but decided to have tonight be his last show and now we're without a second anchor. We're holding auditions on Sunday but it's all rather last minute." She said.

"Sunday." He nodded. "Well whoever you get has to be more fun than Amos, right? I mean what was it that he said right as you were signing off? He was the best part of the show? That's a load of shite."

"I thought you said you don't watch on Friday."

"I also said that it was on in the locker room." He shrugged.

"You did say that." Lily nodded, now chewing on her lip.

"So you view it as practice then? You want to be an anchor?"

"Yeah, sure." She shrugged, not really wanting to talk about her future plans with him.

"You think I could be on one night?" He asked, and Lily chuckled.

"I told you, only twelve people watch the show." She said. "If you're on the show, only eleven people would watch."

"You said that it was good practice though." He argued. "And I need some practice time on air. If I plan to keep playing football then I'll eventually be interviewed, and I'd rather my first time not be in front of the entire nation or something like that."

Lily took a drink from the drink that he'd brought her and shrugged. "I don't see why not." She said. "We've had student athletes on before. They were usually in one of the digital media classes or journalism classes, but still."

"That's awesome. Thanks, Lily." He said, grinning at her again. She gave him a tight-lipped smile in return. "So, you want to dance now?" He asked, and Lily rolled her eyes.

"I think I'm still good." She said, pushing herself away from the table. "I've got to go and check on my friends."

"Alright," He got up from the table as well. "I'll see you on Sunday."

She didn't catch that, or she would have turned around to correct him.


	2. Chapter 2

  _james_potter: had drinks with the lovely @lilyjane last night. Someone was thoughtful enough to send me a pic_

The picture was attached.

A picture of her laughing more than she remembered laughing and him leaning closer than she remembered him leaning.

Her head pounded.

Then there was a pounding on her door and Mary and Em both pushed their way into the small bedroom, Mary clutching her phone in front of her, the screen pointed toward Lily and a look that demanded an explanation.

"He's a dick." Lily said, tossing her own phone to the other side of her bed and pulling her blankets up over her face. "I didn't have drinks with him." She said, before they could ask, because of course they had questions. She felt the mattress give and then Mary was tugging her blankets away from her. She grappled for them, but soon she was looking at Mary and Em again.

"Yes you did, Lily. I'm looking at a picture of you having drinks with him."

"Okay, I was drinking at the same time he was, and he bought me a drink, but he- I didn't  _have_ drinks with him." She tried to clarify. It shouldn’t have been that hard, Mary knew how Lily felt about James Potter.

"Yes you did," She said, shoving the phone in her face again.

"Mary, let her explain herself here." Emmeline said, sitting on the edge of Lily's bed as opposed to crawling almost on top of Lily as Mary had. "I mean, she was telling us how terrible she thought he was yesterday, about two hours before this photo was taken so I'm sure she has a good reason for the 180 flip she did." Emmeline didn't sound as though she thought Lily had a good reason though and Lily was starting to rethink the whole 'was Emmeline a twat?' thing.

"Why would he post a photo?" She asked, picking up her phone again and ignoring their questions. "Why would he post a photo that someone else took  _and_  tag me?" Though these were just two more questions to add to the list of things she wanted answers to when it came to James.

"Why is there a photo of the two of you at all?" Mary asked, she seemed far too worked up over this. Especially for it being before noon the morning after they'd been out.

"Well people take pictures of him on occasion. And he was near me." Lily shrugged, grateful that she looked good in the picture at the very least. It was a shallow thing to consider, but she would be even more upset with him if it was a bad photo of her on top of everything else.

"He was quite near you," Em added, unhelpfully. Lily shot her a glare.

"Okay. Stop. He came up and sat down after I told him that all the seats were taken. He said something about how Remus was right and that I would remember the last conversation we had and would still think he was an arse, then something about how Sirius had said that I wouldn't remember but that I would end up thinking that he'd made an arse of himself a second time." She shook her head as she rambled. She knew that she wasn’t making any sense, but she just needed to get it all out of her head, she needed to get the words out into the world so that she could try and make sense of it all. "He  _wouldn't_  leave. And you know that I'm good at getting boys to leave when I want to."

"Yes, and he didn't leave. So what does that tell us?" Mary pursed her lips and Lily rolled her eyes.

"No. Stop.” She repeated, “I told him to leave as soon as he sat down. Then everything was just weird. He asked me to dance-  _multiple time._ I said no the first time, then he bought me a drink and asked me a second time. Then I left because he wouldn't." She shook her head. "It was weird, but this picture isn't what it looks like.” She looked at it again and narrowed her brow.

"Alright, then what are you doing the pretty-girl-laugh for?"

Lily clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, trying to remember when she might have laughed like that at all. "It could have been when he asked me to dance the first time. I laughed at that." She shrugged and then Mary laughed.

"I think this boy might be into you, Lils."

Lily pulled a face, "Don't say that."

"I'm just saying, this is some pretty next level shit if he's just trying to be friends with you."

"This is weird is what this is." Lily said, looking down at her phone.

"What are you going to do about it?" Em asked.

"Nothing." She shrugged.

"You're not going to reply?" She narrowed her brows. "Not even by messaging him privately?"

"Yeah," Mary smirked. "You could slide right into his DMs."

"Don't say that." Lily and Em said at the same time, both pulling a face. Mary pouted and shook her head.

"And no, I'm just going to ignore it." She said, looking at the stupid picture one last time before she turned her screen off. "Telling him to sod off clearly didn't work last night, so maybe if I just ignore him then he'll get the message. Now you two need to leave so I can go back to sleep."

After a few more teasing comments from Mary, Em managed to get her out of Lily's room and close the door for her. Lily really did like her.

oOoOoOo

Lily held her notebook close to her chest and stepped over a puddle as she walked into the familiar stone building, she had come to think of it as something of a second home. She tucked her notebook under her arm, so she could open the door (a coffee from Hopper's restricted her from using her other hand) and she was a bit overwhelmed at how loud it was.

She was already in a bad mood, and when she saw that there were far too many people encroaching on a space that she thought was rightfully hers, it made her grind her teeth. She’d been doing that all day and if she kept it up she’d get a headache, which would do nothing to improve her mood.

She spotted Marlene, "Why are all these people here?" She asked, glaring at a short blonde girl standing in the doorway of the studio, blocking her way. She quickly stepped aside and Lily stepped up to Marlene.

"Auditions?" Marlene shrugged. Lily raised a brow and turned back to notice that all of the people she was gripping about earlier, did appear to be in a line of sorts.

"Why are there so many people?" She asked, "I put up a notice in the classrooms, but that's about all I was able to do. I was expecting maybe four of five people."

"Lily?" She turned around and took a step back as soon as she saw James walking toward her.

"No," She shook her head and reached up to push her hair out of her face. "I definitely don't have the patience to deal with you today."

He gave her a crooked smile, "Yeah, I figured you were annoyed when you didn't say anything about the tweet."

Lily made her expression as blank as she could manage and looked him in the eyes. "What tweet?" Though of course she knew exactly what he was referring to, because her phone hadn't shut up since he'd sent it out Saturday morning. James looked down and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Well alright then. Definitely played that wrong."

"This isn't a game." She said, and then looked back to the line. "Are you somehow responsible for this?"

He grinned and looked over his shoulder. "Yeah, I might have told a few people that you were having auditions."

"And why would you do that?" She sighed. He was not a part of this show, he had no reason to be telling people to audition. Who had he even told? Lily looked over at the line to try and decipher if she’d seen these students around before, if any of them had any business auditioning in the first place. She wasn’t looking for one of James’ friends to put in front of the camera.

He looked back at her and frowned, his forehead creasing as well. "You didn't want more people to choose from? You told me that it was last min-"

"Lily!" She heard Emmett's voice from down the hall and she turned around, glad for a distraction from James, who she currently wouldn’t mind throttling a bit.

"We were supposed to have a meeting." She said, angling her head up as Emmett got closer. He really was ridiculously tall. He noticed James standing over her shoulder and narrowed his brow slightly before looking back at Lily, clearly surprised to see him there. “And now we have a couple dozen people lined up here,” She waved her hand toward them, trying to at least remember that she needed to calm down. She knew that there was no chance of her actually calming down at the moment, but the sooner she remembered that she needed to calm down, the sooner it would happen.

"Yeah, well I don't mind making this lot wait another hour or so if you still want to have it. They found the donuts that Marlene brought us." Lily squeezed her coffee cup a bit too tight and the lip popped off. Emmett reached out and caught it for her. "I know." He sighed ruefully. “I was pissed too.”

"No. I suppose we should just do the auditions now. If we manage to get through them all before five, then we can have the meeting." Though thinking about having a meeting after all of this nonsense was giving her a headache.

"And what's he doing here?" He asked, looking at James again. James grinned and stepped up, holding his hand out. Lily had momentarily forgotten that he was there and blinked at him.

"I'm James, Lily said I could be on the show." She blinked a bit more.

"Really?" Emmett asked, sounding almost excited. Lily knew that he was a fan of James'.

Lily let out a frustrated huff through her nose and shook her head. "Is that why you're here? I said we could do an interview during one of the shows. I didn't say you should show up today, we’re not filming today."

"I told you that I was coming though."

"When did you do that?" She asked, getting more and more agitated the longer she talked to him.

"At the pub. After drinks." He shrugged, maybe trying a bit too hard to sound nonchalant.

She saw Emmett shifting his weight from one foot to the other and he crossed his arms over his chest. He had always been a good buffer, and she noticed that James took a half step back. But she also knew Emmett far better than most people. She could see that, quite like Mary had been yesterday morning, he was amused by all of this. Lily was not the type of girl who sought after the attention of college football playing hotshots and yet, here she was with far too much of James Potter’s attention.

She sighed, deciding that maybe if she just spoke to him like he was a stranger- in her overly polite voice of hers that got librarians to ignore that she was returning her books late- then maybe he would stop talking to her like he knew her. "Alright, well we're having auditions today. So, unless you're auditioning to be my co-host, there's really no need for you to be here. I’m terribly sorry if I gave you incorrect information earlier," She said, with a  _polite_ smile. "I'll let the writers know that you're interested in being interviewed and someone will get in touch."

"You're good at that," Emmett said quietly, nudging her arm with his elbow and then walking off. He knew exactly what she was doing, but it didn't seem that James noticed any difference at all. "I'm going to find more donuts. Feel free to start auditions without me."

James had quite the unreadable expression on his face when she looked back at him, waiting for him to say something. She was about to  _politely_ excuse herself, so she could start dealing with this mess he'd made (though she supposed she couldn't complain about a lack of options anymore.) "Alright," He said with a nod.

"Alright," She repeated and then started walking away, glad that her unexpected time with James hadn't gone on for too long.

Lily got up in front of the line and ushered people into the room, telling them to find a place to stand and that they would be going in order of who signed in first. Then she left a girl named Amelia in charge and went to sit at the news desk that they used for the show. They had a short script written up for them to practice on, and upon Lily's request, they were filming everything. She would definitely want to go back over it later.

And so, auditions started, much more rambunctiously than Lily had expected them too, but aside from not having a donut from that café she liked near the river, she thought that things were going pretty well.

"I need a coffee break," She called out after a few hours had gone by. They'd gone through more than thirty people, some not needing more than the two minutes required to read through the script before they knew they weren't a fit, and some needing a bit more time to do a second read of a different script. There were only six who Lily had asked to read the second script and that seemed like a much more manageable number.

"How many are left?" She asked Amelia as she started toward the break room.

"Three." Amelia grinned, and Lily sighed. Taking a break for coffee seemed silly now, but she really did need to use the loo and she'd been talking almost nonstop for the last couple hours, so she needed something to drink as well.

"I'll be back in a moment," She promised.

She came back with one of the donuts Emmett had found and saved for her, as well as a mug of tea. "Alright, let's finish up." She grinned, taking her seat again. The next girl was already seated at the desk and she looked nervous. She sounded nervous too, and Lily didn't ask her to read the second script. The next was a freshman boy that Lily had seen around the building before and when he finished his read through, Lily smiled at him and asked him if he'd like to work on the show behind the scenes. He didn't seem disappointed in the least and Lily was glad as she hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings, and she liked having the digital media students working on the show.

"Last one," Amelia grinned, looking excited. Lily was excited too, they'd been here all afternoon and she did have other things that she needed to stress out about. "James, you're up."

Lily didn't think anything of it if she was being honest. James was a common name so until she saw him walking toward her, still wearing that ridiculously crooked grin of his, she didn't even suspect that it could be him. She gave him a look that clearly said, 'what are you doing' and he just picked up the script that was laying on the table and took a deep breath.

"Ready?" He asked her, somehow knowing that she wasn't going to say anything if she wasn't prompted. She didn't know how he knew that, but he did.

"Good evening, students of UCL" She said, turning back to look into the camera and smiling as she always did when addressing the student body. "I'm Lily Evans and this is my new co-host,"

"Hullo everyone, I'm James Potter and I couldn't be happier to be here."

"We’re happy to have you as well. Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, James?" She said, still wearing her show-smile as she turned to look at him.

"Well I'm a third year here at UCL, I play football for those of you who don't know, and I've been watching this show for the last two years. It's always been wonderful, and I'm chuffed that I get to be a part of the team."

"Looking forward for things to come," Lily grinned, though she could feel it tighten. He was going off script- which wasn't bad. It seemed more natural if you did it right. But he  _was_ doing it right and it was bothering her that he seemed so comfortable. She could also see that everyone watching the two of them was smiling.

"Thank you," He grinned. "In tonight's broadcast, we'll be checking in on our schoolmate's work in Ethiopia. A study abroad group that has been working closely with Save the Children has sent us some footage of the projects that they've been working on down there, and I can't wait to see it." How did he say that without sounding at all sarcastic? Normally when people said they couldn't wait to see something, they sounded sarcastic. That's why it was in the script, it had caught almost everyone.

"Alright," She shook her head and picked up her tea, taking a sip. "Let's close it out." He nodded and flipped to the next page.

"With that, we come to the end of another hour. For UCL News, I'm James Potter,"

"And I'm Lily Evans. Goodnight."

She tapped her papers on the desk and then stood up, picking up her mug and what was left of her donut, she started walking away.

"You're not going to have me read the second script?" He asked, standing up as well.

She shook her head. "You did well, we'll let you know." She didn't bother to turn around. She could see the looks that some people were giving her, but she couldn't be bothered. She managed to go the last two years without so much as seeing this bloke, and now he'd tweeted a picture of the two of them looking like they were on a date, and auditioned to be her co-host all within a weekend.

"Is this because of the picture?" Marlene asked when she reached the production room.

"If you're asking about his motives, I haven't a clue. If you're asking about mine," She sighed and slammed her mug on top of her notebook. "Well then yes. No… Maybe." He made her feel like she was off balance. Like she was missing something important, like the existence of any kind of foundational relationship between the two of them. “Did I used to be friends with him or something? Did I misremember the last two years?”

“What?” Marlene chuckled and pressed her lips together.

“Nothing, never mind.” Lily shook her head.

"They're all going to want-"

"I know." She huffed, falling into her chair. "You know, counting that audition, I've talked to the bloke four times in my life."

"I know," Marlene said, "But despite the fact that he fancies you, they're still going to want him on the show."

"He doesn't fancy me." She said, because it was the only thing she could counter. And even she knew that she was lying at least a little. Blokes didn’t act like he was acting without reason.

"Usually when a bloke acts like a loon, it's because they fancy someone." Marlene said, voicing aloud what she’d just been thinking.

"He doesn't know me. Four times, remember."

"Right. Well, it doesn't take much to fall for you." She grinned, winking at Lily. Lily let out a heavy breath and forced herself to untense her shoulders.

"I know you're trying to be supportive and cute, but you're not helping."

"Sorry," She said, looking slightly apologetic. Lily sighed again. "We have to make a decision, today don't we?" She asked, turning on the computer screen and shaking the mouse to wake it up the computer.

"Shows tomorrow." She nodded. "Good thing there are only seven people we have to choose from."

Lily sighed and started going through the footage to the people who had read the second script. The rest of the crew that would be helping make the decision started filing into the room and someone turned on the projector and the lights went off and she started playing them.

None of the auditions were truly spectacular. If they were, then Lily could have (and would have) made the argument that one of them should have been given the spot. She wanted to give it to someone within the department, but only two of the prospectives were in the department, and they were both first years. She'd give them jobs making pieces, and they'd be happy, but they weren't polished enough for an anchor position.

" _With that, we come to the end of another hour. For UCL News, I'm James Potter,"_

" _And I'm Lily Evans. Goodnight."_

"That just sounds nice," Amelia said, tapping her pen against her clipboard. Out of everyone in the crew, Amelia took this as seriously as Lily did, and so Lily had come to trust her judgement as much as she trusted her own. "James Potter and Lily Evans." Lily cursed internally. Maybe she couldn't trust anything anymore.

"I like him too." Someone spoke up from her right. "I didn't think he'd be any good since he's just a football player, but he was. At speaking. I was surprised." The boy shrugged, and Lily appreciated his comment since he had said 'just a football player.' No mention of how he was the star of the team, or God’s gift to the school.

She didn't say anything as they all debated, Marlene tried to get people excited about an exchange kid from Canada, but in the end, the consensus was unanimous. They were going to ask James Potter to be the new anchor and Lily let her head fall onto the desk in despair.

OOoOoOo

Lily went to the library after that. And because she was already in a bad mood, she pulled out her phone and opened Twitter. She told herself it was to get rid of the notification icon at the top of her phone, but she couldn't really help her curiosity. The comments that the picture had sparked ranged from would-have-been-sweet-if-it-actually-was-a-date to psychotic. Lily knew that James had a large fanbase, of mostly girls, but some of these comments were jarring.

_I hope that BITCH knows how lucky she is to breathe the same air as james_potter_

_Would literally kill(her) to be with him #notjoking #literally_

And the comments just kept coming. James hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said that they both had a lot of twitter followers, and she'd actually gained quite a few since he posted the picture, even though she hadn't even replied or acknowledged it in any way.

The sweet comments were just as jarring.

_james_potter, how do you even find a girl that sweet? That smile of hers is just about blinding #feelingabitjealous #baegoals_

_james_potter, how come I didn't know that you weren't single anymore? lilyjane, same question goes to you? I follow both of you and this is how I find out?_

Lily knew the girl who'd posted the last tweet, but she didn't understand why should would have been at all invested in Lily's dating life.

And now James was going to be her co-host. Was she going to be subjected to this kind of bullshite all the time now? She’d have to get rid of the app on her phone. She took a deep breath and started typing.

_lilyjane: Don't forget to tune in tomorrow night to see who our new anchor will be! #uclnews #byeAmos_

She hesitated before posting it, deleted the bit about Amos, and then hit send. It was still her show to promote and it was something that she'd planned on doing before she knew how things were going to go down. She posted about the show all the time, she shouldn't stop now just because things were… weird.

It hadn't even been thirty seconds when:

_james_potter has liked your tweet_

She rolled her eyes and turned off her screen, slipping her phone back into her bag. It's funny how hard it was to ignore it now. She'd been so good at it a couple of days ago.

When she'd finally decided to leave, she didn't feel as though she'd gotten anything done. Whatever studying she'd managed to accomplish, hadn't managed to stick. She was wired and annoyed and she needed a hot shower and a  _Parks and Rec_  marathon. Also some wine. She would definitely be having some wine.

She pulled out her phone to tell Mary that she was on her way back to the flat when she saw that she had a text from a number she didn't have saved in her phone. It wasn't uncommon, as everyone in the crew had her number and she couldn't be arsed to save all of their numbers.

The text was asking if she was free to meet and if she was still on campus. If this wasn't someone from the crew, she would definitely be alerting some kind of authorities.

_Lily: You're going to have to tell me who you are if you want the answer to those questions._

She started to text Mary again when she got a reply right away.  _It's James._ The words popped up at the top of her screen and she felt herself deflate a bit. Of course it was.

_Lily: Why do you want to meet up? Didn't Amelia go over everything with you?_

_James: yes, but I still think that it'd be nice for the two of us to meet up and talk before tomorrow’s show_

_Lily: And why is that?_

_James: you seemed pissed at me_

_James: and I'd rather you weren't pissed at me_

_James: especially not for our first show_

_Lily: I'm not pissed at you. I don't know you. I just know you're a strange bloke who thought it was a good idea to get hundreds of women to internet stalk me/threaten to kill me because I laughed when you asked me to dance._

He didn't reply right away to that, so Lily texted Mary and started for the train. She'd made it halfway there when her phone buzzed again.

_James: the picture wasn't some kind of revenge for not dancing with me if that's what you're thinking_

_James: I didn't know that people were going to be mean to you_

She rolled her eyes and put her phone away, hoping that the 'read at' would speak for itself. Ignoring him seemed to be the only thing that got to him. At least he'd looked properly shamed when she'd stared him down in the studio.

When she'd taken a seat on the train, she pulled her phone out again. Four new messages from James. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She'd have to block his number.

_James: I also didn't know that it would bother you_

_James: well at least not that much_

_James: I thought you would think it was funny_

_James: also it's a really nice picture of you_

She tapped her thumb against the side of her phone, not sure how she was supposed to navigate through this conversation. She couldn't shut him down entirely, not now that she was going to be working with him three days a week at minimum. And then a thought hit her, though she didn't let it get her hopes up.

_Lily: How are you even going to do the Friday show? Don't your games start at 7?_

_James: the season is half over, games move to Saturday afternoon instead of Friday evenings_

_Lily: Right. I forgot._

_James: a lot of people do_

_James: so can we meet up?_

_Lily: I'm already on the train._

_James: that's alright, we can meet somewhere near your flat_

_James: I have a car_

Of course he did. But even if he offered to come to her flat and cook her dinner, something that would require zero effort on her part, she wasn't interested in being around him. She gave it a few minutes to let him stew, or because this conversation was actually exhausting, she wasn't sure.

_Lily: I have plans with my roommate this evening_

_James: lunch tomorrow?_

He was a fast responder, wasn't he? That annoyed Lily as well.

_Lily: That might work_

And then she put her phone away again and refused to look at it even though she heard it buzzing.

She walked into her flat and saw Mary on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and two glasses of wine. Netflix was loading, and Lily sighed since she'd been hoping she could use the telly.

"Hey," Mary said, turning towards her and smiling. "Marlene texted me."

Lily gave her a tight-lipped smile. "James won't stop texting me. I hate whoever gave him my number. I haven't checked my phone since the train, but I'm sure that there's at least four new texts from him."

"He's a bit of an eager beaver." She chuckled.

"Yeah, I'll be in my room." She started toward her door when Mary made a sound in protest.

"I've got this set up all nicely for you, why would you go to your room?"

"This is for me?" Lily asked, eyeing the glass of wine in a way that could only be described as lustful.

"Of course it is!"

"I just assumed that it was for Emmeline."

She shook her head. "I told her that you were bummed so she had to get lost. She's been over all weekend anyway. She can spend some time at home."

"Just give me a heads up before she moves in for real." Lily said, falling back on the couch and reaching for the wine immediately.

"She's not moving in." Mary rolled her eyes, though there was an edge to her voice. Mary wasn't good at relationships. Lily was her best friend, and had been since they were eleven and sang her praise to anyone who would listen, but even she would admit that Mary wasn't good at relationships. She gave too much, and too quickly and she almost always ended up hurt. And then when she did have something solid, she just kept waiting for it to fall apart in her hands. But Lily didn't think Em was going anywhere.

"Well not yet, but when she does, give me a heads up." She shrugged, trying to keep her tone light so that Mary wouldn't get all sweaty and nervous.

"Right. Okay, in this hypothetical scenario where Em moves in with us, I'll give you proper notice."

"S'all I ask." Lily grinned, taking another drink of her wine. "What are we watching?"

"Whatever you want," Mary grinned, handing her the remote. Lily started flipping through the different shows and she didn't notice that Mary was staring at her for a couple minutes. When she did notice she reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"What? Do I have something on my face?"

"Aren't you going to check your phone?"

"Why would I do that? I just told you that I didn't want to do that."

"I know that's what you said, but that's what girls always say."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, you pretend not to be interested because you think you shouldn't be, but you really are interested because how could you not be- and you can't sit here and tell me that you're not actually interested." She quirked her brow and when Lily made a face to let her know that she actually wasn't interested.

"Okay. I mean I can believe that you're not interested in him like he's clearly interested in you," She clicked her tongue and reached for her wine. "But you have to be a bit interested in what's going on, that’s all I meant. What he could have texted you? Why he decided to audition for your show? Why he's shown up out of the blue and demanded your attention in the strangest way I've ever seen and made me glad that I've not dated a bloke since I was thirteen." Lily laughed and shook her head.

"I mean of course I want answers, but whatever he's texted me isn't going to give me answers, it's just going to make me more confused about whatever the hell is going on." She said, pulling her phone out to prove her point. "So far he's just said that he'd like to meet up before we do our first show tomorrow-"

"Well that seems pretty normal."

"Yeah, but I didn't want to see him again today, so I blew him off and said maybe to having lunch tomorrow. And that's when I shoved my phone into my pocket and ignored it."

"Alright, so what did he say then?" Mary asked, tucking her legs up under her and leaning closer so she could look at Lily's screen.

_James: awesome!_

_James: I know you said 'might' and not 'yes' but still_

_James: also do I bring something to wear tomorrow or is there like a wardrobe?_

_James: I'll bring something either way since I don't want to wear Amos's old clothes_

_James: I've just realized how many questions I forgot to ask Amelia_

_James: but you're not responding anymore so I'll shut up now_

Lily raised her brow and looked over at Mary. "Who is this kid? Why is he- I mean when did I- How…" She trailed off and closed her eyes. "I'm not forgetting that I was friends with him at one point right? Like I didn't wake up the other day after having been in a terrible accident and just forget a chunk of time where I was friends with James Potter. Because that's how I feel. I feel like I have amnesia because he seems way too chummy with me to have only had two drunk conversations with me. Two drunk conversations that totals maybe fifteen minutes."

"Six messages in a row is a lot to send a stranger or an acquaintance." She agreed. "If I sent you six in a row and it wasn't an emergency, you'd probably put out an ad for a new roommate."

"And you would understand why I did." Lily sighed, taking a few more sips (gulps) of her wine. "I mean this is ridiculous."

"A bit. Maybe you make him nervous." Lily snorted at that.

"The boy is not acting nervous. You should have seen him during his auditions today. There were no nerves." She shook her head. "And don't blame me for his behavior," She added. "He's acting strange and that's on him."

"Sure, but you might want to reply before he thinks you've been murdered and sends an officer to our door to check on us." Lily shook her head, hoping that that wasn't something that James would do.

"He doesn't know where I live." She said, because she honestly knew nothing about James aside from the fact that he was an over-texter and played football. And, "He watches the show." She said, realizing that she hadn't told Mary that yet. Mary narrowed her brow, since she knew as well as Lily that not all that many people watched the show. "He told me at the pub and sited two stupid things we did a while back. One that he wouldn't have known about if he didn't watch the show. Unless he stalks my twitter or something." She shrugged.

"I did notice that he liked your tweet earlier, so that is a possibility."

"He told me that they have the show on in the locker room before games." She said. "He complained about how terrible Amos was for saying he was the best part of the show on air. I think he actually does watch it. I just don't know why."

"He's not  _actually_ stalking you, is he?" Mary asked, lowering her voice and looking concerned for a moment.

"I really hope not." She sighed, pulling out her phone again. "I'll make Marlene come to lunch to be safe." Mary nodded and then paused for a second.

"Maybe you should ask Emmett to come as well."

"I would but he's got practice on Monday afternoons."

"Right. And when are you going to start dating him?" She asked. She asked this quite frequently and Lily had learned to ignore it for the most part. Emmett was a nice bloke, and everyone expected her to start dating him, or to want to date him, but it wasn't going to happen. She had never thought of him that way, and she was sure that he'd never thought of her that way either.

"Ha ha," She rolled her eyes. "I've decided that we're going to watch the  _Breakfast Club_."

"Again?"

"You promised that I could pick anything I wanted."

"But we watch the  _Breakfast Club_  too much."

"Alright then we can watch  _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies_." Lily shrugged.

"No we can't, it's not on Netflix anymore," She said, sounding a bit too smug.

"I own it on DVD." Lily said back, just as smug.

They eventually agreed that they could watch Lily's first choice and then Mary would get to pick. Apparently, it had been a long weekend for the both of them and it was only fair that way. She pulled the bowl of popcorn closer as the opening sequence began to play and shoved her feet under the blanket that Mary had draped across her lap.

Before the movie actually started, she picked up her phone, so she could respond. If she responded now, then she wouldn’t have to think about it throughout the movie.

_Lily: Marlene and I are having lunch at Hopper's at one. We can go over any questions you have then._

_Lily: And I can't blame you for not wanting to wear Amos' jackets_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews would be nice of course


	3. Chapter 3

Lily walked into Hopper's a little before one, with Marlene in tow. She had her trusty notebook with her, so she could take note of his questions if she felt the need to, because even if she didn't particularly like James, she was a professional. Especially when it came to the show. He said that he had questions, so she was going to do her best to answer them.

"Does he know that I'm going to be here?" Marlene asked, twirling a curl around her finger and taking a seat next to Lily at a table near the counter. They always sat near the counter as it was easier to go back for seconds. Also Marlene worked here a couple days a week, and so their table had to be close enough for Lily to be able to hold a conversation with her when she was behind the counter.

"Yes. I told him that you and I were having lunch here."

"And after you told him that, you invited me to lunch." She nodded, giving Lily a look. Lily couldn't tell what the other girl was thinking, and Marlene wasn't exactly known for being predictable. However, Lily couldn't really think of anything that Marlene could do that would be too out there. After all, this was a meeting about the show.

"Well Mary suggested that he might be stalking me, so I didn't want to meet him alone."

"He's not stalking you." She rolled her eyes.

"We'd been drinking. I don't actually think he's stalking me."

"I mean, I'm sure you have a stalker, but it's not James."

"I don't have a stalker." It was Lily's turn to roll her eyes and then she stood up to go and get their drinks.

"You probably do." She called out across the café. When Lily turned around to walk back toward the table, she saw James walking in. He smiled rather brightly, and Lily found it (like so many other things he'd done in the last four days) jarring. She smiled back, though more polite than friendly, and waved him over to the table that Marlene was seated at.

"Thanks for meeting with me," He said, "I'm very excited about all of this."

"Well that's good to hear," Marlene said. "Everyone is pretty excited to have you. I mean, anyone is an improvement over Amos' icy glares and pompous attitude, but most of the crew are all big fans of yours." She took her coffee from Lily and then tugged at another one of her curls.

"Thanks." James grinned, "I'm a fan as well. Of the show, not myself."

"Yeah, Lily mentioned that you told her that you watch the show. That seems unrealistic, but pretty cool if it's true."

"It is true," He nodded quickly, "I was surprised to hear that not that many people watch it."

"I told you, if you put ‘UCL News’around anything, it's rendered invisible." Lily shrugged a shoulder and flipped open to a blank piece of paper. "So, you said that you had questions? Or did you want to get something first?" She asked, nodding toward the counter.

"It won't be invisible for long," He grinned and then shook his head. "Just water for me," He said, pulling out a fairly large purple water bottle with the school's mascot striking a funny pose on the front.

"You know, you're probably right. With you on the show, people might actually watch," Marlene let her curl spring back into place as she leaned forward in her seat. She looked over at Lily and bowed her head in a serious fashion. "Not that they shouldn't watch to see you, because they should, but they don't. I'm sure they'll tune in at least a couple times to see you though," She said, looking at James again.

"I am quite popular around here these days."

"That's because you keep winning," Marlene grinned.

Lily bit her lip. Annoyed seemed to be her constant state of mind lately, but she had just realized that she really was going to be the only person on the crew who wasn't thrilled to have a football star as an anchor. Sure, it would be nice to have the show noticed, but she'd rather they get noticed for how good the show was, not that James Potter was suddenly on it. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that none of this had actually happened yet and she couldn't start getting worked up over things that hadn't even happened yet or she would drive herself mad.

"You're being quiet," Marlene said, and Lily realized that she'd zoned out and missed part of the conversation.

"Sorry, I was just thinking how strange it would be if people actually started watching the show." She said, shaking her head and reaching for her coffee. She was glad that Marlene was taking the lead on this meeting, or whatever it was.

"You’re really good at what you do," James said, looking at her. "They should already be watching."

"I told you, most people on the show are doing it just for the experience. I'm not sure why you're doing it, since you told me you wanted practice getting interviewed but…"

"I did say that, but I'm a fan of the show and when you suggested that I audition, it sounded like a good idea."

"Lily suggested that you audition?" Marlene asked, looking entertained by that even though Lily hadn't denied or confirmed his claim yet.

"I didn't suggest that you audition." She argued, keeping her gaze on James.

"You said that I could leave, or audition." He shrugged.

"Okay, but that sounds like she invited you to leave." Marlene laughed, though her voice had gained a clipped quality about it that had Lily sitting up a tad straighter. She’d seen Marlene when she used this voice and she had no idea what was about to happen now.

"I mean, Lily's good at being polite, but you're not a dolt. Are you a dolt? A few of us have been wondering lately." Lily blanched, though she should have expected her to say something like that since she wasn't known for her tact and Lily hadn't given her much of a choice when she 'invited' her to lunch.

"Marlene," She hissed, but then she looked at James to see how he would react, because in all honesty, she  _had_  been wondering if he was a bit thick in the head.

"Um," He narrowed his brow, his smile disappearing for the first time since he'd walked into the café. "No, I know that she wasn't actually suggesting that I auditions, I was just-"

"You were trying to be cute?" Marlene shook her head. "But that's the other thing. A lot of blokes are sweet on Lily, and a lot of blokes flirt with her-'

"Marlene," Lily repeated, but she didn't stop.

"Or try and chat her up, but is that even what you're doing? We can't tell? And by we, I'm not including Lily. I mean, I'm sure she's confused too, but I'm talking about myself and her roommate Mary, and Mary's girlfriend Emmeline." She paused and looked over at Lily. "I haven't met her, but Mary had me on speaker the other night and she seems great." She looked back at James. "Anyway, we think that you tweeting out that picture of the two of you was pretty strange."

"That's because it was," Lily muttered, taking a sip of her coffee.

Marlene gave Lily the side eye and shook her head. "So, what's the deal, Potter? Why have you suddenly appeared in our orbit?"

Lily could feel that her face was red, and that wasn't because Marlene had embarrassed her, but because she suffered from very acute second-hand embarrassment and she could tell before she even looked at James that not only had he not been expecting this, but he was mortified.

He actually looked pale when she did work up the nerve to look at him. He ran a hand through his hair and then pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"I- well…" He shook his head and started fidgeting in his seat. He looked over at Lily, almost as though he was asking for her help, but she wasn't going to help him. She actually wanted him to answer. She wanted him to explain what the hell was going on. "Maybe I've been coming off a bit… strange." He said, using Marlene's word. "But I didn't mean to. I watch the show, I follow you on twitter, I guess I just- it's weird to actually talk to you now when I feel like I know quite a bit about you. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I didn't realize I'd given your friends anything to talk about behind your back."

Lily raised her brow slightly, almost agreeing with him on that front. They should have included her in their musings about James, so she could complain some more. She really enjoyed complaining sometimes.

"But I don't really know why we've started seeing each other. I just saw you at the pub and wanted to talk to you, then I went in on Sunday because I'd misunderstood you because I'd been drunk when you were talking to me. And that's it really."

"Why did you audition?" She asked again, reaching out to pick up her pencil and she started tapping it against the table.

He sighed. "I really do watch the show and I think it's great and I think it'll be a lot of fun. I'll get practice talking in front of a camera. And I'll get to do something that isn't football related. I love the game, but I do have other interests." He shrugged.

Lily nodded, "Alright." She needed some time to think all of this over, but she supposed it had explained a lot. Between the show and her twitter, a lot of her information was out there. And maybe he had felt like he'd known her more than he had because of it. And he had seemed genuine in his interest of the show when he'd first talked about it. Maybe she had been looking at it all wrong. Maybe she'd been remembering the night two years ago and letting it cloud her judgment of who he was now. People changed in the course of two years, right? First year football players who weren't used to local fame, weren't the same as third years.

She still thought he was pompous of course, but maybe she didn't have to be annoyed with him constantly. That would be nice. It was exhausting being annoyed all the time.

"Alright," Marlene agreed, taking a sip of her coffee and reaching back up to her hair to pull at another curl. "And I was being sincere when I said that the crew was all excited to have you. Just wasn't including myself. I don't watch football." She shrugged.

James nodded, not making any comment about that or anything else she said.

"No hard feelings?" Marlene asked, "I had to suss you out a bit. You understand."

"I mean, yeah. I do understand." He nodded, popping the top off his water and taking a drink.

"So," Lily took another deep breath and looked at him. "You said that you had questions? I think we better get them answered before four thirty. That when we have our run-through and do last minute edits."

He was definitely shaken, but he did start acting like a normal human being after that and Lily felt herself re-balancing.

OOoOoOo

"We're making an announcement beforehand, right?" Emmett asked as Lily walked into the production room. She raised her brow, not knowing what he was talking about since he hadn't added any context. "James, we're making an announcement that he's going to be on the show before we're actually live, right?"

"Why would we do that?" Lily asked. "That'd be a stupid reveal."

"Because no one watches our show, so no one will know if we don't tell them." Emmett said.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I feel like people will figure it out."

"I'm sure they will," James as he walked into the room. If lunch with Marlene had had any lasting effects, he didn't show it outwardly. Other than the fact that he wasn't trying to blind her with a smile, she couldn't tell that anything was different about him. "I did tell my mates, I figured that was okay."

"Of course that's alright," Lily nodded, glad that he didn't seem upset or shaken, as they were going on air soon and that would be a terrible first impression to make.

"My friend Sirius said that he was going to live tweet the whole thing."

"Sirius Black?" Emmett asked, and James nodded. "Kid was in my astronomy class. Said he was taking it ironically since he  _is_ a star." He chuckled and shook his head. "Anyway, I'm Emmett Dackery. It's nice to officially meet you." He held out his hand and James took it.

"Nice to meet you too." He grinned, though this was the first time that Lily felt as though his smile was somewhat guarded. "Sorry if I don't remember your name right away, I've been approached by about twenty people so far. How many people work on the show?"

"Way more than is necessary since you get credit towards about four different programs." Emmett grinned, "And not a problem. I answer to pretty much anything,"

"Oi, beanstalk!" Marlene called out, walking towards the three of them. Lily didn’t know if she had somehow heard Emmett say that he answers to everything, or if that was just good timing.

"Including that, unfortunately." Emmett sighed and turned around. "Are you mad at me, or just trying to embarrass me in front of the new guy?" He asked, walking off to meet her in the middle.

Lily shook her head at the two of them and then turned back to James. "Alright, well we're going to head to the conference room and start going over the script with the writers. Amelia is one of the students in charge of the writing, you probably remember her."

"I do remember her," He nodded, pulling out his water bottle and fidgeting with it. She'd seen him do that back in the café and figured it was something he did when he was nervous or uncomfortable. He needed to be doing something with his hands.

"The nerves starting to get to you? Remember, twelve people." She grinned, feeling that it was alright to be a bit kinder since Marlene had completely embarrassed him a couple hours ago. And on the bright side, he probably had no interest in pursuing her any longer.

"I know, twelve people. But this is all new and so I'm… I'm reasonably nervous. It'd be weird if I wasn't, right?"

She chuckled and shrugged, "I suppose it would be. Though, you do manage to play football in front of how many people ever weekend?”

“That’s different,” James waved off her comment.

They got to the conference room and James introduced himself to the writers, though there were quite a few extra people who didn't normally bother with the read-throughs. She couldn't blame them though.

The next hour and a half flew by and soon it was time for the show to start. James had done very well in the writer's room, as she had expected him too after his audition yesterday. They got dressed and everyone took their places, and final sound checks were completed. Everything was in it's place when the light turned red and Lily opened the show.

It all went smoothly, and when they cut to a pre-filmed piece that they'd made the week before, Lily took a deep breath and reached for her water. "You're doing well," She said, looking over at James, who smiled at her.

"Yeah?" He reached for his own water. "Thanks. That means something coming from you."

"You know I'm not a professional at this, right? I could be wrong. Professionals could think that you're doing terribly."

"I'm not really trying to impress the professionals." He shrugged, and Lily tilted her head.

"You're trying to impress me?"

"You're the old hat at this." He said, "You know what you're doing and how you want all this to go. I've got a lot of expectations to live up to."

"Not really." She said, though she supposed he had a point. She did  _want_ other people to take this as seriously as she did, she did  _want_ them to do what they could to perfect all the different aspects, but she couldn't exactly expect that from them. It wouldn't be fair of her. "All I need you to do is be nicer to everyone than Amos was and not mispronounce words on camera."

"Well I think I can do the first one, and can anyone really promise the second?"

"Okay, no mispronouncing simple words that you've known your entire life." She amended.

"I can promise to try my best."

"I suppose that's all I can ask." She chuckled, shaking her head. So far, so good. She was glad that he'd thought to meet up before the show, and she was glad that she'd thought to bring Marlene along. And  _and_ she was glad that Marlene had thought to interrogate him. Because this was working. She could talk to this James who had been humbled and taken down a few pegs.

"Lily!" Marlene hissed and ran up to the desk that she and James were seated behind. "Look at this!" She shoved her phone onto the desk and slid it over to her. It was twitter, which Lily was only just starting to enjoy again.

_brightest-star: You'll never guess which wanker somehow managed to wind up as an anchor for the school news_

There was a picture attached, again, Lily was included, but it was mostly of James. Whoever tweeted this had taken a picture of a television screen in the opening.

"I told you my mates were going to tell people," James said, peering over at the screen.

"Okay, sure, but it's been favorited and re-tweeted  _thousands_ of times. And it's only been fifteen minutes. There are a lot of people watching right now." She said, sounding nervous, even though she'd never once been behind the camera.

Lily felt the palms of her hands start to sweat and pushed the phone away. "That seems like something that you should have told me after the show was over. Not something you should have told me when I have about two minutes to collect myself." She shook her head.

"It's the same show it was a moment ago," James said.

"I've never done well in front of a crowd. I started doing this because no one watched." She shook her head. "I'll be fine, I just need a moment."

"Donut?" Emmett called out from next to the camera man.

"I said I need a moment, not a donut." She sighed, "But yes, of course I want a donut." Emmett nodded and jogged off to get her one.

"Is that his job?" James asked. "Getting you snacks?"

Lily chuckled, "Yes, but that's not what he does for the show."

"That's not  _all_ he does for the show. You get ornery when you haven't had sugar." Marlene took back her phone and turned around to go back to the sound board.

"Are you going to be alright?" James asked, straightening his jacket.

"I'll be fine." She nodded, "Are you going to be alright?"

"I perform in front of thousands all the time as you’ve already pointed out." He said, running a hand through his hair.

"Yes, but you don't speak in front of thousands all the time, as you pointed out, it’s different." She shrugged, somehow making herself feel better by thinking that maybe he should be nervous.

“I did have a point there," He said, pushing his glasses up his nose as Emmett ran up and placed a donut in front of Lily, giving her the 'a-okay' sign as he walked backward toward the camera, almost running into one of the crew. Lily chuckled and broke a small piece of the sweet off, popping it into her mouth as someone let them know that they had thirty seconds left.

"We've got this," She said, feeling the nerves drain out of her as the seconds ticked down. She'd been doing this for years. She had nothing to worry about.

OOoOoOo

"That was amazing!" James practically jumped out of his chair after the red light shut off and the director said they were clear. Lily laughed at his enthusiasm. "I mean- I made a million mistakes but this is so much fun!" He looked over at Lily and waited for her to agree.

"It is fun, yes." She agreed. "A bit more nerve wracking with more people watching, but maybe a bit more fun too." She said, looking out at the crew. They all looked thrilled to have more than twelve people watching all the hard work that they'd put in. Before the end of the show  _#uclnews_ was trending locally on twitter for the first time in history. Of course,  _#jamespotter_ wasn't far behind, but Lily couldn't be bothered to be bothered by that.

"That was a great show," Marlene pushed her glasses up into her hair, where they instantly disappeared. "Which means that we're going out for pancakes!" She shouted, and an enthusiastic cheer went around the room. Lily smiled at every and then looked back over at James, thinking she should explain.

"We go out for pancakes after a good show. We can't go out for drinks on a Monday when most people here have eight am classes- I mean we  _could_ but we choose to celebrate with breakfast food instead."

"Breakfast food is wonderful." He grinned. "I can see why you would want to do that instead of setting yourself up for a Tuesday morning hangover."

"Are you coming?" Emmett asked him as he walked up to Lily and put his arm around her, and a lot of people turned to look at James.

"I don't want to intrude on your thing."

"We're celebrating because of you," Marlene said, narrowing her brow. "We were all pretty sure that whoever we got to replace Amos was going to be awful. But you are not awful so we're getting pancakes."

" _You're_ okay with me coming?" He asked, looking at Marlene skeptically.

"If I wasn't, don't you think I'd say so?" She smirked, since she had done nothing but speak her mind at lunch earlier.

James looked over at Lily, who should have expected it, "And you?"

"You're part of the crew now, James." Lily shrugged. "It'd be pretty rude to exclude you." She said, offering him a smile.

And so, he agreed, and they all headed to a nearby pancake house that was open late. Lily sat with Marlene, Amelia and Emmett. James got roped into sitting more in the middle of the room and talking with everyone for at least a few minutes. He seemed to be taking it in stride though.

"So how many people watched?" Lily asked, looking around at her friends.

"17,432 people were watching when you signed off. And that is 17,420 more people than Friday's episode." Marlene grinned, all of her teeth showing as she danced in her seat.

Lily shook her head. "That's so many people."

"It is." Amelia agreed, "It's a good thing our show is virtually flawless, so we don't have to do an overhaul now that people are going to watch."

"Virtually flawless?" Lily quirked a brow. "Well that's just not true."

"Agree to disagree," Amelia shrugged.

"Lily is never going to be satisfied with anything." Emmett said, taking a break from shoveling pancakes and eggs into his mouth to join the conversation for a moment.

"That's not true. I'm satisfied, I just know that there's always room for improvement."

Marlene shook her head. "What did your parents do to you as a child?"

"Nothing. My perfectionism drove them nuts too." She said, pressing her lips together. "I'm going to get more orange juice, anyone want some?"

"Me please," Emmett said, scooping up more eggs and a bit of potatoes.

She nodded and started towards the counter. James must have followed her, because he appeared in line directly behind her. "Everyone is being very friendly." He said, looking around.

"Everyone  _is_  very friendly." She nodded, looking over the menu, just in case she wasn't completely familiar with it already.

"Your boyfriend seems very friendly too." He said, and she turned to see him looking back at Emmett. She narrowed her brow. "And not at all the jealous kind. Which is a shame since I was kind of hoping his was." He turned back to look at her.

"I'm sorry, but why were you hoping that Emmett was the jealous kind?"

"You don't seem like you have the patience for someone who gets jealous." He shrugged.

"Oh," She nodded, acting as though something had just dawned on her. "I see. You're still flirting with me even though you're under the impression that I have a boyfriend who is less than five meters away." Perhaps Marlene hadn’t scared him enough.

"Under the impression?" He, of course, latched onto her specific wording.

"I'm not dating Emmett." She shrugged, though saying that she was would be an easy out here. He would still flirt with her apparently, but he might back off a bit.

"Oh." He looked surprised to hear that, but then his surprised was replaced with a smile. "Well alright then."

Lily shook her head and turned back toward the menu. There were only a few people left in front of her and then she could go back to her friends.

"So, do we meet up tomorrow to go over Wednesday's show?" He asked, pulling her attention back to him with an actual question.

"The writers will meet up for a couple hours tomorrow." She nodded. "But as an anchor, you don't have to do anything more until Wednesday at four thirty."

"Right. But you'll be at the meeting tomorrow?"

Lily shrugged. "I try and go to them, but that's not because I'm an anchor."

"It's because you love this show, right." He nodded.

"Right," She agreed, "But I have class for the first hour that they meet. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busy days for class."

"Me too," James grinned, looking happy that they had that in common. Lily just pressed her lips together and raised her brows a bit before turning back around.

She'd already decided somewhere between lunch and the run through of the show that she was going to be friendly with him. She didn't want to be in a situation where she dreaded doing the show because she would have to spend hours with him. She'd rather they were on good terms. So, she was trying to look past all the strange things that had happened that weekend. She was trying to give him a clean slate. But again, this was more for her own sanity than for him.

The line moved up and James stepped up more than the line moved, so he was more next to her than behind her. "Would you be alright with me posting about the show now?" He asked.

"Why wouldn't I be alright with that?" She asked.

"Well because if I post a clip from the show, both of us are going to be in it." He shrugged. "And you didn't like the last time I did that."

Lily rolled her eyes and shook her head, "That's completely different." She said. "You posted a photo of the two of us that I didn't know existed without my permission before. If you post clips from the show, well I've already given my permission to be in the public eye for those clips seeing as how it's a public broadcast. It wouldn't be weird for anyone to post clips from the show, but it would be weird for people to just take pictures of me and post them without me knowing. You see?" He had to understand that, right? One was bordering on an invasion of her privacy and the other was just something people did with clips they liked online.

He nodded for a moment and then ran a hand through his hair. "Alright, I get that, but I still wanted to ask for your permission. I figured it'd be a good rule of thumb to have from now on." He said. "As your mate pointed out earlier, I've not really been thinking straight when it comes to you lately."

Lily narrowed her brow. "What does that mean?"

"I'm still flirting," He grinned.

She sighed and stepped up in line again. And he stepped with her. "It just sounds like you're blaming me for you being stupid." She said, "And honestly, I'm tired of that line of thinking. I've done nothing to influence how you behave."

"Oh no, I'm stupid all on my own," He assured her. "And it's not just when it comes to talking to girls that… well- I'm also stupid in plenty of other ways. My mates and I have very little self-control when we all get together, and we also think that we're really good at pranking people. And while now, we mainly prank each other, we used to try and prank everyone around us. Especially back in secondary." He chuckled.

"Your mates from secondary all go here now?" She asked. Mary was the only friend from secondary that she talked to anymore. The norm seemed to be that you came to uni and  _then_  you made friends that would last a lifetime.

"Yeah, we were a bit too co-dependent to all go our separate ways." He chuckled. "I've known them for most of my life. I guess saying  _half_ would be more accurate. But yeah, when it came time to decide where we were going, we kind of picked a school that would work for all of us."

"How many friends are you talking about?"

"There are four of us." He said.

"Remus and Sirius?"

"Yeah," He nodded, "And Peter. We all have a place off campus together down by the river."

She nodded, "Well it's nice that you all get to do that."

"It is. We've even managed to slightly grow out of our co-dependency." He motioned around the room. "None of them are currently here."

"Well I'm glad that you all don't feel the need to follow each other around anymore." She chuckled. The line moved up again and it was her turn. She ordered her orange juices and another order of pancakes and then stepped off to the side. James ordered a coffee and stepped to the side with her.

"Did you all meet through the show?" He asked, nodding back at her table of friends. She nodded.

"Yeah, my roommate Mary, it was her idea to join the show. She changed her mind a couple of weeks in, but I was stuck. I loved it and I loved all the people. It's how I worked out what I should study."

"It's nice when you just accidentally fall in love with something, isn't it?"

"Serendipitous." She agreed, smiling slightly. Her order came, and she was handed a tray. "I'll see you on Wednesday." She said, giving him a nod before she turned to walk back to her table.

"Yeah," He nodded, his hand going back to his hair. "I'll see you Wednesday."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews make the sunshine brighter


	4. Chapter 4

Lily was sitting in the library on Thursday afternoon, trying to get through some homework before her next class. She had another hour or so before she had to start heading toward her digital imaging class and she couldn't seem to get her mind to focus on her coding assignment that was due by six  _and_  her thoughts kept drifting off to how wonderful a caramel mocha latte sounded just then. Or maybe a hazelnut latte instead? Something with more caffeine than she needed and definitely something with chocolate.

She might have been addicted to caffeine.

Though she supposed there were worse things that she could be addicted to.

She started humming a song that had been stuck in her head for a few hours now and typed out another line of code, successfully changing the shape of the dropdown menu she'd been editing for the last hour. She normally liked doing her homework for this class. Web design wasn't something that she wanted to go into, but the class was fun.

She started working on the background color again; not because it was difficult but because she was picky and couldn't make up her mind. She was going back and forth between two colors and didn't notice when someone slid into the seat next to her.

The bloke cleared his throat and she jumped slightly, looking over at him with her hand over her heart. "Oh goodness," She said, taking a deep breath.

"Oh goodness?" The bloke repeated, sounding as though he was scandalized by something, though Lily hadn't the faintest idea what it could be. He looked slightly familiar, but Lily couldn't place where she knew him from. He had long black hair that was pulled back into a messy half braid of sorts and he had about four piercings on the ear that she could see. "Did you actually just say 'oh goodness?' Are you an eighty-year-old grandmother?"

Lily opened her mouth to respond and then closed it and rolled her eyes. Her eye rolls had long since been able to stand on their own. She wasn't going to argue about her word choice with him. He looked as though he wouldn't care if she told him off for being rude anyway. He also looked as though he knew that he was being rude, so it would be a waste of her breath. (Though the fact that arguing was sometimes a waste of her breath, wasn't always enough to deter her from the activity. She very much enjoyed arguing on occasion.) "Can I help you with something?" She asked.

"I'm not sure yet." He said, taking a pack of gum out of his bag and slowly unwrapping a piece from the foil. He bent the stick of gum in half and placed it in his mouth before he laid the foil out on the table and started flattening it out with the back of his nail.

"Do I know you?" She asked, raising her brow.

"Not yet." He said.

"Why did you sit down here?" She tried again. If this boy was attempting to flirt with her or something of the sort, he was doing a rather terrible job of it.

"Curiosity, I suppose." He shrugged, still working at the foil.

"You're being vague on purpose and I don't appreciate it." She said.

"Would you like some gum?" He asked, looking over at her with the most peculiar shade of blue eyes. They were so light and lacked pigmentation, that they looked gray. And the smirk he wore was a bit unsettling. It suggested that he knew more than she did, and that he might not tell her everything. Or anything.

"I'd prefer your name." She said, though she accepted a piece of the gum when he held it out to her. It wasn't coffee, but it would have to do for now. Maybe it was sugar she was addicted to?

"Sirius." He said, and Lily gave a nod, remembering where she knew him from. He was one of James' mates. Judging by his name, he was the one who had tweeted during James' first show and let everyone know that they should start paying attention to the station.

"Alright Sirius, and what is it that you're curious about?" She asked, wondering how a person like James who was a complete nerd (while somehow being a jock at the same time) could have stayed close friends with someone like Sirius; who looked as though he just didn't give a shit about anything. She wondered what the other two members of their friend group were like.

"Well James is quite taken with you, and I guess I wanted to work out why that was." He said, starting to fold up the foil now, though Lily didn't know what shape he was going for.

"Quite taken with me?" She quirked a brow at him. "Now who's the eighty-year-old?" She saw the corner of his mouth quirk up and smiled a bit herself.

"Alright, James  _fancies_ you. Is that better?"

"Less elderly, yes." She nodded, sliding her foil over to him in case he wanted to fold it up into a little shape like he was doing with his own. And while his word choice was now less outdated, it still conveyed the same meaning, and that was really what Lily took issue with.

"Okay, so I came over here to see why James fancies you."

"I hope it's not because of anything that I've done." She said, leaning back in her chair and looked around the library, not realizing that he'd appreciated what she'd said until she looked back to find that he was no longer looking down at the foil, but at her.

"I should have talked to you the first time that he made a fool of himself." He said.

"Back in the pub? He did tell me that you warned him that he'd make an arse of himself."

"No, not at the pub," He shook his head. "At that party."

"First year?" She asked, raising her brow. Did everyone remember that? And Mary had spent so much time harping on her for bringing it up as often as she did. She'd have to remember to tell her that James' strange and angsty looking friend  _also_ remembered the party. She felt prematurely vindicated.

"Yes, in first year. That's the only other time you've talked to him, isn't it?"

"Before this week, yes, that's the only other time I've talked to him."

"Well then that's what I'm referring to."

"Why would you have talked to me back then?" She asked, and he turned back to his micro-origami project with a heavy and dramatic sigh.

"Because he wouldn't shut up about you for weeks after that. Kept going on about how he needed to apologize, though he never did get around to it. What was it that he even said to you?" His voice was light and air, "Just kidding, you don't have to tell me because the bloody prat has reiterated the conversation dozens of times since that night." He sat up a bit straighter and ran a hand through his hair in what was a scary good James impression, " _And then I told her that any other girl at the party would have taken it as a compliment! What the bloody hell was I thinking, Sirius?"_

"Why did you skip over the thing that I should have taken as a compliment? That was the very best part," She grinned, very much appreciating this bloke taking the micky out of James for how he'd treated her despite the fact that he was supposedly one of James's best mates since childhood.

Sirius looked at her and rolled her eyes. "You're both hung up on it then."

"He looked right at me and said 'you have nice tits.' He pointed at them." She said, narrowing her eyes slightly and Sirius chuckled. The conversation had spiraled from there, but between that and him informing her that she should have been flattered that he thought so, she had been (rightfully) pissed.

"I don't know how he thought he'd get away with that." He shook his head and then waved off her comment, "But I already knew what he said. My point was that you're hung up on it still."

Lily however believed that she had every right to be upset about that evening. "I'm not hung up on it. I thought we were in agreement that he was a prat that night, that was all."

"Yes, he was a prat. He's still a prat." Sirius shrugged. "And he's still into you."

"And why are you telling me this?"

"Because I don't want you holding it against him. He's not the same punk ass eighteen-year-old that he was at that party." Lily rolled her eyes.

"I'm not holding it against him," Though she wasn't exactly letting it go either. Again, she liked to argue.

"But you won't go out with him." He said, his tone suggesting that he was hitting the nail on the head.

Lily crossed her arms over her chest and snorted. "You're right, I'm not. Both because I don't have any desire to ask him out, and because he's not asked me out either." She sounded almost smug and Sirius looked confused.

"What do you mean he hasn't asked you out?"

"Exactly that." She turned back to her laptop and started messing with a few things, just so he would no longer have her full attention.

"That fucking wanker." Sirius muttered, and Lily turned back to look at him.

"You seem genuinely upset right now."

"I told him that he had to ask you out." He said, sitting up straighter and running a hand through his hair; not dissimilar to the way that Lily had seen James run his hand through his hair a countless number of times, though he no longer looked as though he was attempting to impersonate him.

"And why did you tell him that he had to ask me out?"

Sirius groaned and shook his head. "Because he won't shut up about you and it's bloody insufferable."

"Won't shut up about me?" Lily snorted, "Yeah, alright."

"What did the two of you talk about at the pub then?"

"Well if he won't shut up about me, then shouldn't you already know the answer to that?" She asked, causing him to roll his eyes. But then she realized what he was implying. She leaned back against her chair and turned to look at Sirius. "Wait. You told him that he had to ask me out at the pub? Last Friday?"

"Yeah." He nodded, not getting what she was confused about.

"But that's the first time that we'd talked in-"

"Two years, yes. I know."

"He fancied me before last Friday?"

"Why do you think he watched your show?"

"It's not my show." She argued, though once again, she found herself feeling awfully confused where James Potter was concerned. "He didn't like me the whole-"

"No, not the whole time." He interrupted. Lily couldn't find it in her to tell him to stop interrupting her. "I mean, probably the whole time, but there were times when he was dating people and he didn't go on about you then."

"What does that mean? How did he go on about me?"

Sirius shrugged. "You two had classes together, didn't you? He said you did, but I don't know how credible he is about these kinds of things. And then your show, your twitter…"

"So you're telling me that James Potter, the football star of our university, has had a stupid school girl crush on me for the last two years?" She asked, deciding that that was completely implausible, and that Sirius must be messing with her.

He shrugged, "I guess I am. I told him if he didn't ask you out then I was going to do something drastic. I suppose this will have to do. My actual plan was to woo you and then start dating you myself." She looked him up and down and he smirked. "Is that plan still an option?"

"Woo me?"

"Yes I know, I'm eighty years old, we've already established that. But so are you, remember? We’ve got a bit of kindred spirits thing going on. This could work." He was smirking at her again and she sighed.

"I don't know if you're joking or not."

"Completely Sirius. All the time."

"Alright, but that was a pun, which negates what you just said."

He shrugged and stood up, "I've got to get to class. I'll see you around I suppose."

"Why will you see me around?" She asked.

He gave her a look. "Because my best mate is your co-host and I don't want to walk back to my house three nights a week."

"You could take the train." She said, not really trying to be helpful so much as she just didn't like that he was suggesting that he was going to hang out in the studio while they were live. She didn't want him standing around behind the camera brooding while she was trying to concentrate.

"People with hair like mine, don't take the train, red." He started walking away and Lily pulled a face.

"Actually they do." She called out. "All the time. They're usually musicians and it's the only method of transportation they can afford." For a moment he gave no sign that he'd heard her, and then he flipped her off before turning down an isle of books and disappearing.

She huffed and slouched over in her chair. She still had a while before her class was set to start, but she started packing up her things anyway. It wasn't as though she was going to get any work done after hearing all of that. Even if it wasn't the truth entirely, it had to have been fabricated from bits of truth, right? She couldn't believe all of it though. Maybe he had had a thing for her in passing and Sirius had just blown it out of proportion. Maybe he'd mentioned her three or four times in the last two years and Sirius had just really disliked hearing about her. After having talked with him for however long he'd been seated next to her, she thought that was entirely possible.

She looked over the desk after she'd gathered up her things to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything and spotted the foil that Sirius had been messing with. She reached over to pick it up- intending to throw it in the rubbish bin since it was a piece of garbage- and saw that it was artfully folded into a small, but unmistakable lily.

She thought it was pretty cool how he'd managed to make that, but still ended up throwing it out as she headed toward Hopper's to get herself a coffee.

Quite like James himself, Sirius was a confusing and strange bloke.

OOoOoOo

Lily was sitting in her dressing room/closet working on a project for class when she heard a crash come from somewhere that sounded both near, but not near enough for her to be concerned enough to check it out.

The writers had just finalized tomorrows show, and Lily was happy with what they had. And that's why she was working on her actual homework instead of going over the script again.

When someone knocked on the door that was ajar, she turned off the music she'd been listening too and turned her chair to see James' standing in the doorway looking rather frazzled and out of breath.

"I take it that crash I heard a moment ago was you?" Lily asked, raising a brow at him. He nodded and leaned against the frame.

"I didn’t break anything important. Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Is this about what Sirius told me earlier in the library?" She asked, and she could tell by the subsequent look on his face that it definitely was about what Sirius had told her earlier in the library.

"He's a prat-"

"Funny, he said the same thing about you. Then he said that he was going to try to woo me and gave me a lily made out of gum foil." She chuckled, moving her laptop from her lap to her desk. "Well he didn't so much give it to me as he just left it on the table, but still. You're got yourself quite an interesting mate."

James inspected her for a moment, clearly not sure how to take what she was saying. He looked around the room (closet) and since it wasn't big enough for everything it had in it (Lily included)  _and_ another person, he decided to stay where he was, though he looked as though he needed to sit down.

"He is a strange one," He agreed, taking his water bottle out of his bag and fidgeting with the cap.

"What did you want to talk about though?" She asked.

"He was joking when he said that he was going to ask you out, right?"

"He didn't say he was going to ask me out, he said he was going to 'woo' me. He also said that you were 'quite taken with me' and then called  _me_ an eighty-year-old because I said 'oh goodness’ after he startled me." She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Was she rambling? She felt like she was rambling. She really didn’t want to have an awkward conversation with James about everything Sirius had told her. At least not while she was this sober. It would not be any fun, her palms would sweat and she couldn’t exactly just get up and leave the room (closet) since he was standing in the doorway.

"Okay, well he told me a lot of what he said to you," James said, narrowing his eyes. "But you're not acting like he said anything too bad. Which means that he was probably exaggerating when he told me- which he does, but I just thought that- I mean he did say in the pub that I didn't have…" He shook his head. "And now I'm rambling. What is it that he said to you about me then?"

Lily chewed on the tip of her tongue for a moment and then shrugged. "He did a spot on impression of you, from that party first year, telling me that I should have taken you saying I had nice tits as a compliment." She shrugged. "And he said that you only watched the show for the last couple years because you've been hung up on me- which is ridiculous." She added, pulling out her phone and pretending to check it because she didn't want to look at him and see if it was true or not.

"It is ridiculous." He agreed.

She looked back up and sighed, feeling slightly relieved. "I got the impression that he was trying to embarrass you. Don't worry about it." She shrugged one of her shoulders and he ran a hand through his hair.

"Oh, he was definitely trying to embarrass me."

"And sus me out," She added, remembering the first half of their conversation.

"Sus you out?" James looked a bit mortified at that for some reason.

"He thought you'd asked me out and that you fancy me, and he wanted to know why. But I told him that you  _hadn't_ asked me out and that we've been getting along fine lately." That was only half true, but she didn't really want to give James a reason to ask her out now, did she? Definitely not.

James was quiet for a moment and then he nodded. "Alright, so we're still good then? He didn't ruin everything?"

"What would he have ruined?" She asked, honestly this time.

James shrugged, "I don't know. We _have_ been getting along lately, and I don't want him to say anything that's going to scare you into never speaking to me again. I've done enough of that all on my own," He sighed, and a small smile flittered across Lily's lips. "That wouldn't really make for good television."

"If we did it right," She shrugged. He chuckled, sounding relieved and Lily was starting to think that maybe Sirius had been telling more truth than fiction. She crossed her legs and pressed her lips together, not sure how she felt about that. Maybe she should try to remain impartial. Was that possible? Could she do that when she was directly involved in something?

She could try.

"I suppose you've got a point there. Still, I think what we've got going now is pretty good."

"We've done two shows," She smiled, "We'd be looking for a new anchor if it wasn't at least  _pretty_ good."

He huffed, but he was smiling again, looking far more relaxed. "You know what I mean. People seem to like us together. If Twitter is anything to go by."

Lily nodded, though not entirely sure what he meant by that, "I’ve been trying to stay off twitter. I suppose we  _could_  make a pretty good team. But I'm still not going to say anything definitive until you've been here for at least a month." She shrugged. "I'm optimistic about a lot of things, but not blindly so."

"That's fair. I can't wait to get your definite assessment of my performance and our chemistry. As co-anchors." He needlessly clarified, since she wouldn't have assumed that he meant anything else.

"Would you prefer an email or a hard copy of my review?" She asked, maintaining a serious expression for a moment and then cracking a grin.

"Oh, hard copy for sure." He played along, "That way I'll be able to carry your notes around and keep them with me when we do the show."

"Of course," She chuckled.

He nodded, "Alright, well. I guess I'll see you tomorrow." Lily nodded and then made to turn back to her work.

"You know, actually, before I go," She turned back to look at him, her brow raised. "I just, well I'm inviting a lot of people from the show to a party that my mates and I are hosting on Saturday night," He said, starting to fidget with his water bottle again.

"Hosting? So, is it like a dinner party?" She teased. She didn't know why she always went back to a teasing tone, she should definitely be keeping some kind of boundaries up with this boy after everything that Sirius had told her. But she couldn't exactly help it.

"Ha ha," James mocked. "I just wanted to let you know that you're also invited." Lily nodded. "You know, in case you heard anything about it and were wondering. And no, it's not a dinner party."

"I hadn't heard anything, but thanks for the invite." He hesitated, looking as though he wanted to ask if she would be there or not, but in the end, he just nodded again, smiled at her and left. Lily turned back to her desk and took a deep breath. She wasn't going to the party.

It wasn't that she disliked parties of course, but after everything that Sirius had said, and then how James had just been acting, she couldn't go and assume that there would be no presumptions made on James' part. If she went, then he'd think that it meant something. Right?

Maybe she was looking too much into it.

There was no way to know, because she knew that Sirius couldn't be trusted completely, but she also knew that James had more than friendly feelings toward her. And he knew that she knew. And knowing everything that she knew, and everything that he knew, she's still been teasing and friendly toward him just now. She definitely couldn't go.

She took another deep breath and let her head fall back so she was looking up at the ceiling. Everything was a mess.

oOoOoOo

"We're going." That was the first thing that Mary said after Lily had told her everything that had happened on Thursday. It was Saturday morning now, due to Mary spending the night at Em's flat on Thursday and the show taking up most of Lily's time on Friday, it was the first opportunity she'd had to talk to her best friend about everything that was going on.

"We're not going." She said, giving her a look. "Haven't you listened to anything that I said?"

"Of course I listened," She sighed. "But I meant that Em and I are going. And I meant it more as a piece of the conversation than a demand, you just heard what you wanted to hear. We were invited a while ago. Turns out Em is in a class with Remus something or other and he lives with James." Mary shrugged. "So Em and I are going, and I would have invited you if James hadn't."

"But he did."

"He did." She agreed and then pursed her lips. "Is that a bad thing?"

"I don't fancy him." She said.

"Right, for a whole laundry list of reasons, you don't fancy him. I know that. And I understand that, but who cares if he fancies you? Maybe he'll change his mind once he gets to know you." She smirked, and Lily took a pillow off the couch they were sitting on and smacked Mary with it.

"What's that supposed to me?" She asked, knowing that her friend was joking. At least she was hoping that Mary was joking.

"I didn't mean it as an insult!" She laughed, taking the pillow to prevent Lily from using it against her again. "I just meant that who you are, and who he thinks you are based on whatever he's seen of you the past couple of years are probably not the same person. You know how crushes work."

She pressed her mouth into a thin line and thought about it. "So you think that he won't like who I really am-"

"Because he's created you into this perfect being in his head. So he'll still like you because you're awesome and all that, but he probably won't fancy you because there's no way you're nearly as great as he thinks you are in his head." She made a face. "I sound like a terrible friend right now- but you know what I'm talking about? The whole concept of meeting your hero's and all."

"I get what you're trying to say, but you lack any tact at all and so yes, you do sound like a terrible friend." She chuckled.

"Though on the other hand, you are amazing, and he might fall head over heels in love with your true self. The self that leaves expired milk in the fridge for a week and then yells at me when I leave my socks on the couch for more than five minutes."

"I like how you started over correcting and then you started nagging me." Lily shook her head. "So, you think I should go?"

"Everyone is going to be there." She shrugged. "All your friends from the station and me, and that's all the people that you know so…"

"You really are on a roll when it comes to putting me down today, aren't you?" Lily poked Mary in the side and the other girl squirmed.

"Sorry, I had a orgo exam today. Teasing you is how I relieve stress. Teasing you is always how I've relieved stress."

"I guess I was hoping that Em would change that."

Mary poked Lily now. "But yes, I do think that you should go. I mean, what would be your excuse for not going?"

"Do I need to have an excuse? Maybe I just don't want to go out tonight."

"Maybe, but you do want to go out and see all your friends and get a little drunk and have fun. So, what would you tell him on Monday when you see him?"

"Nothing. I don't owe him an explanation."

"Okay, well if you 'don't owe him an explanation' then why can't you go to the party? Who cares if he fancies you? You think going to this party that they're throwing for a very large number of people will be the equivalent of accepting his hand in marriage?"

"Okay, there was no point during our conversation where I used  _that_ much hyperbole." Mary just shrugged. "So, you don't think it's a big deal? Because I do want to go, all my friends are going like you already pointed out. I just don't want him to think that I'm going because of him."

"But if you didn't go it would be because of him." Mary pointed out, though her reasoning seemed to be muddling Lily's mind even further. "Do what you want, Lily. Don't let a boy ruin a party for you."

"But he's throwing the party!"

"With like three other blokes. Also, who agrees to have three roommates? That's got to be an insane living situation. Four blokes in one house?"

"That is quite a few." Lily agreed and then sighed. "Alright, I'll go. Because if I don't, I'll spend the night home alone wishing that I was off with you and Marlene."

"Atta girl." Mary smiled proudly. "Now can I un-pause this episode of  _Bill Nye Saves the World?"_

"I love that you watch this with me." Lily grinned, leaning against Mary's shoulder.

"Yes, and I love that you interrupt the theme song with your rantings about some bloke. You know I don't like blokes." Lily rolled her eyes.

"Yes, well unfortunately I do, so every now and then you have to listen to me complain about them."

"You don't like them that much."

"I don't like anyone that much. Aside from you and like two other people."

"Honestly, same. How do people have more than like, four friends?"

"It's beyond me." Lily shrugged, and then Mary hit play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews make me write more jily tbh


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Mary and Lily arrived at the party, there were already so many people crammed into the house where James and his mates apparently lived. It wasn't that far out of the city, but Lily hadn't expected something this nice, brick and two stories. They were all in Uni after all, and she didn't know how they could afford it. Perhaps they'd received a good deal from a relative, or the house had been passed down from generation to generation. Or maybe it was some kind of bet that had landed four blokes in uni such a nice place to live.

Lily was caught up in the 'why,' simply because she didn't want to think about an inevitable social interaction that was bound to happen once they walked into the house. Though there were  _a lot_ of people there, maybe she wouldn't even see James that night.

Mary didn't share Lily's reservations and pushed open the door as soon as she approached it, "Come on, Lils! We have to find Marlene. I feel like I haven't seen her in years."

"It's been a couple of weeks, you two are so dramatic." Lily said, walking in and staying close behind her friend. She recognized a lot of people from the studio already, so he hadn't been joking when he said that he was inviting all of them. It was a comfort to see Amelia and some of the writers dancing off to her left and Emmett waved to her from her right, his hands full of food as he walked out of what Lily assumed was the kitchen.

"Here," Mary had always been good at finding drinks and they were hardly ten steps into the door and she was already handing Lily a red cup. Lily shook her head and smiled before taking a drink. Tasted liked spiked punch to her, and while she normally stuck to beer at these parties, just to be safe, one drink couldn't hurt. Especially not when she was surrounded by so many people that she knew. Almost everyone she looked at looked familiar.

Mary grinned at her, apparently having expected some sort of argument from Lily. But she was still a bit nervous and on edge and she could tell that it was just vodka that she was drinking so she wasn't going to argue about the drink, as she desperately wanted some alcohol in her system to calm her nerves.

"Do you know where Marlene is?" Lily asked, feeling the bass change as the next song came on. She could feel it in her chest, vibrating. It'd been a while since she'd been to an actual party, lately they'd been more into going to pubs on the weekend, but she liked this too. On occasion anyway. When there were no emotional complications attached to it.

Mary pulled out her phone and looked through her messages for a moment. "She said she's out back," She said, shoving her phone back into her pocket and then grabbing Lily's arm, pulling her toward the back of the house.

They'd spent only five minutes in the house but stepping outside felt nice anyway. Marlene was easy to spot, standing near Bertram and Benjy. "Marlene!" Mary shrieked, running across the deck and launched herself at the other girl. Lily smiled at the two of them.

"Mary I've missed you so much!" Marlene exclaimed, handing her drink off to one of the boys so she could give Mary a proper hug. "It's been too long."

"They saw each other last week, right?" Bertram asked, looking over at Lily.

"It's been two weeks," Lily shrugged. "You two had Marlene last weekend so Mary didn't get to see her." He nodded, remembering whatever their plans had been.

Lily looked around and was surprised to find that the house came with a decent sized backyard. Her grandmother had lived in London, and Lily had walked through her neighborhood many times, but yards much bigger than a matchbox were hard to come by. This yard could fit another, slightly smaller, house.

"This place is insane," Mary said, noticing what Lily had noticed.

"Yeah, apparently some of the boys who live here come from money. Like, not just one of them, but  _some_ of them. So, they got this place." Marlene shrugged, looking around.

"Well I'm going to have to introduce myself because I know none of them, and because I'm curious how they managed to get this place. They're renting obviously." Marlene shrugged again. Then the two girls started catching up, going over everything that they had done the last two weeks and Lily was content to listen, even though she'd heard everything already since she saw both of them almost daily. She wasn't ready to venture back into the house yet though and chance seeing James.

Fate seemed to have other plans, however.

"Oo! Em is here!" Mary announced, and Lily realized that she'd already finished her drink since they'd walked outside. "You're going to love, Emmeline." Mary continued, looking at Marlene. "Lily loves her, don't you Lily?"

"I do," She said, looking into her empty cup and frowning. "She's very nice."

"Don't make her sound boring," Mary rolled her eyes and then grabbed Lily hand and pulled her back into the house. "We'll be back in a moment, I’m just going to go and fetch her!" She called over her shoulder.

And once again, Lily was being dragged through the house by her best friend. And once again, Mary found another drink for Lily. Lily was glad that Mary seemed to have the ability to pull them out of thin air, and took it again, without saying anything.

"You're being quiet, Lily. I thought we agreed not to overthink things. To have fun with our friends."

"We did." She nodded, taking another drink. "Maybe I'll have fun after I finish this drink," She grinned. And then they were back at the front of the house and Em was there, hugging someone with sandy blonde hair.

"That must be Remus," Mary grinned and bounced slightly as she stepped up to her girlfriend. It was Remus and Em introduced the two of them and then waved Lily over. Remus raised his brow when he saw her, and Lily gave him a tight-lipped smile.

"You two know each other?" Em asked, noticing the strange exchange.

"No, I've just heard about Remus." Lily said, holding out her hand.

"Probably not as much as I've heard about you." He said, reaching out and shaking her hand. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Oh!" Mary shook her head. "Because James fancies you something awful. I was all confused for a moment."

"Yeah," Remus nodded with a laugh. "We didn't really think that Lily would show up tonight."

"Well I talked her into it and she's probably regretting her decision to come very much now." Mary grinned, tossing her arm around Lily's shoulders.

"Slightly," She nodded, taking another sip of her drink.

"Well he's going to be happy that you're here." Remus grinned.

"Oh come on, you can't avoid blokes who fancy you unless you lock yourself in your flat." Em teased, taking Mary's cup from her hand and taking a drink.

"Oi! Get your own,"

" _You_ can get me a drink," Em suggested, quirking a brow. Mary jutted out her jaw and then walked off to do just that.

"You should use your superpower to get her to pick up her laundry." Lily laughed.

"I have to use it sparingly or she'll notice what I'm doing." Em shrugged.

Em walked off after Mary and suddenly Lily was standing there with Remus. "He was in the kitchen last I knew," He said, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning back slightly. "Though I doubt you'll be able to avoid him for long." Lily chuckled.

"He's not going to think I came to see him though, right?"

Remus narrowed his brow. "I mean, it is his party, isn't it?"

Lily opened her mouth and then closed it, nodding her head slowly. "I knew I shouldn't have listened to Mary. Nothing good ever comes from listening to her."

"Em has always made her sound quite wonderful." Remus countered.

"They haven't been dating all that long and Em is still blind to all of Mary's many flaws."

"What about you? Do you have any flaws?" He looked like he was amused by something and Lily stuck him with a look.

"Of course, I have flaws." She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"He's a nice bloke, if that means anything to you. I've known him since I was eleven and he's always been a nice bloke."

"I can think of a few instances where he wasn't a nice bloke."

"Oh sure, he's also a prat. A major prat. But he's found quite a nice balance between the two recently." He grinned, and Lily laughed.

"You know Sirius wasn't singing his praise when he accosted me in the library."

"Yeah, James was all bent out of shape over that." Remus laughed. "But there's no telling Sirius what to do, so he got quite a laugh out of it. But he likes you to. Completely different way of course."

"I shouldn't expect Sirius to post any pictures of the two of us on twitter?"

"James is also stupid," Remus said, suddenly looking more serious. But then he cracked a grin.

"You know, I might have worked that out all on my own."

"Right, it doesn't take long to notice." He laughed. "I think Sirius might have told him it was a good idea." Lily laughed at that. “Don’t know why James hasn’t caught onto the fact that when Sirius tells him something is a good idea, it’s normally because it’s a terrible idea and he wants to help James make a fool out of himself.”

"Sirius seems like a character."

"It's the only thing he knows how to be." Remus grinned, looking at something over her shoulder. "And I'm going to give you a fair warning. James has just spotted you." Lily tensed slightly and then nodded. She talked to James all week, this didn't have to be any different than that. She took another healthy sized drink from her cup.

"Thank you for that. One of the many downsides of having hair this color is that you can’t hide for long." Lily smiled at Remus, "I'm getting the feeling that you're the voice of reason in the group."

"I get that feeling a lot too," Remus grinned.

"Lily!" She took one more drink and then turned around.

"'Lo, James." She smiled. "You weren't joking when you said that you were inviting everyone in the studio."

"No, I wasn't," He was smiling at her in a way that she wasn't used to, and it made her stomach flip in a way that wasn't entirely bad. Actually, it was kind of nice to have someone look at her like that, with so much excitement, even if it also made her nervous. "I wanted to make sure that no one got left out." He grinned, "Seeing as how I'll be spending a lot of time with them from now on and I don't want anyone miffed with me."

"Oh no one is going to be miffed with you," She said, turning around for a moment and seeing that Remus had disappeared. She turned back to him and took another sip, feeling her head start to get lighter. "You got a lot of people to watch the show and people like that. Also, you're nice to them and they're quite an easy-going bunch."

He just kept smiling and she couldn't help but smile back. When she went to take another drink, she realized her second cup was empty and she pressed her lips together. "So, what is this party for?"

James' smile dulled for a moment and he cocked his head to the side. "Well we won our game, didn't we?" Lily laughed and shook her head.

"You told me about the party days ago." James chuckled and shrugged.

"Well I was banking on us winning. Did you watch the game?" Lily normally didn't have a problem saying that she didn't watch the games, but James did play in them and he was quite good at it. Also he was still looking at her in that way that had her stomach twisting about.

"Um, well not really."

James laughed, "Not really?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "I don't watch much sports. I'll go to one of Emmett's rugby games every now and then but only if he promises me sweets and coffee."

"Oh Lily," He shook his head. "The games are all a blast! Even if you're just watching on the telly."

"Well I can imagine that you would think so, as you play on the team."

"I do." He nodded, "But you know how much our school enjoys the game. It's quite impressive really, that you have managed not to get swept up in it all."

Lily rolled her eyes and looked around, wishing that she had Mary's superpower to pull drinks out of thin air. She wasn't sure if she was trying to get drunk or not, but the alcohol was doing wonders for her nerves. And she had been ditched by Mary and Em. "It's not that I don't like football, it's just that I'm very busy all the time and I… well it's kind of lost its appeal for me anyway."

"What does that mean?" He asked.

She shrugged again, "Means that I used to like it and now I don't." He didn't push any further and she was glad, since she wasn't planning on telling him anything more than that.

"Well you missed a good game." He said, "You wanna find another drink?" He asked, apparently noticing that her cup was empty as well. "Sirius and Peter made the punch, is that what you were drinking?"

"Yeah, it's good." She nodded. "What is it exactly? Apart from vodka." He chuckled and shrugged.

"Orange juice and lemonade and a few other juices. I wasn't home when they made it, but Peter was quite proud." Peter was the only one of the four that she hadn't met yet.

"Well he should be proud, it's very good."

"He'll be chuffed that you think so," He nodded in the direction of the kitchen and Lily, still without Mary to pull drinks from the air, followed after him, though keeping a slight distance.

Once they were in the kitchen and Lily's drink was refilled, she decided it was probably time to try and find her mates again. She couldn't spend all evening with him if she was intent on him not thinking that she was here to see him. "Well thanks for showing me where the punch is. You've got lots of guests to mingle with- and I've got to go and make sure that Marlene doesn't get into a fight with Emmeline unnecessarily. You know how she does that."

"I do?" He asked, looking disappointed that she was looking for an out, but she hadn't left room for an argument.

"Well she did try and fight you in the coffee shop," Lily laughed, reaching for a bowl of pretzels on the counter and popping one in her mouth.

"Oh yes, she's kind of terrifying." Lily nodded.

"She'll be glad to hear that you think so," She grinned and then held up her handful of pretzels in some sort of wave. "Thanks again,"

He took a step forward and then nodded, "Yeah, no problem. I'll see you around." She nodded in a way that she hoped he took as noncommittal and then headed back to the porch, hoping that her friends were still there.

They _were_ still there, and Emmeline was seated on the railing, trying to French braid Marlene's wild hair. "Oh this is nice," She grinned, looking at Mary who looked thrilled. "It wasn't what I was expecting to walk out and find, but it's nice."

"What happened to you? You disappeared." Mary said.

"No, you and your girlfriend disappeared, and James found me, but I have more alcohol and I have pretzels and he's actually being nice tonight, so I'm in a good mood."

"He's always nice to you." Marlene countered, and Lily shrugged.

"He wasn't flirty is what I meant. He was just friendly, and it was nice." She ate another pretzel. "Also, I don't think that he thinks I came here to see him. So we're good on that front too."

"Are we, red?"

Everyone turned to look at the door, except for Lily. She'd only had one conversation with the owner of that voice and yet she was already familiar. "Evening, Sirius," She smiled, turning around and sticking another pretzel in her mouth. "Are you here to tell me that we have more problems?"

"I'm always here to tell someone about a problem," He smirked.

"And what seems to be the problem tonight?" Lily asked, taking another drink, noticing that she was tipping her cup quite considerably. There didn't seem to be much left. She was drinking awfully fast tonight.

"Well you're entirely wrong about everything you just said for starters. Also, looks like your cup is empty."

"And who are you?" Marlene asked before Lily could comment on either of the things that he said.

"Sirius Black, James' best mate."

"I thought Remus was his best mate," Emmeline said, looking over at Mary for confirmation.

"Remus is a wanker, and I'm his best mate too. I'm everyone's favorite."

"Ah," Marlene nodded. "Me as well."

"She gets it," Sirius said, nodding toward Marlene while looking at Lily. "Who is she anyway."

"I'm sure you've heard of her." Lily chuckled. "That's Marlene. She works on the show and-"

"And scared the wits out of James," He nodded, smiling appreciatively at her. "Yes, I have heard of you and your work."

"It is my job to do the scaring."

"You didn't scare me," Em said, looking around at her.

"I like you." She shrugged. "Don't know why you put up with Mary if I'm being completely honest."

Emmeline appreciated that, but Mary did not and reached out to swat her on the arm.

"Anyway," Lily said, raising a brow. "What did you mean when you said that I was wrong about everything?"

"Exactly that." He shrugged. "James just came up and gushed to me about how you'd showed up and that you're wonderful and that the two of you are getting along so well and how you’ll probably get married very soon and have babies-"

“He said that?” Marlene interrupted, raising her brow.

“No, Sirius just likes to exaggerate.” Lily muttered before letting out a guttural, "Urgh," She shook her head, "Of course we're getting along. We work together so I decided that I wasn't gonna like, not like him. Because then doing the show wouldn't be fun. Also he's funny and a bit clever when he's not being thick." She shrugged. "I just wish he'd- oh I don't know. You were definitely right about the second problem. I am out of a drink," She said, shaking her empty glass forlornly.

"Can't do anything about James being a swot, but we can fix your drink,"

"Yes," Lily nodded and held her cup out to Mary. "Mary is a drink fairy. She can pull them out of thin air." She motioned that Mary should do exactly that and the other girl just laughed.

"Lils, you're a bit smashed already aren't you."

Lily nodded, not bothering denying it. "These drinks are rather strong." She said. "But still, you're a drink fairy. You always know where they are, and you always manage to get me one about two seconds after we walk into a place. Even the pub. It doesn't matter if there's a line, you just always have a drink without waiting for one."

"You just have to know who to turn to for them," She shrugged.

"She's a flirt is what she's saying," Em smirked.

"At the pub, yeah," Mary nodded. "I am."

"Lily's a bit of a flirt too," Marlene pointed out, causing Lily to scoff rather dramatically.

"I am  _not_ a flirt."

"Lily's just really nice," Mary actually chose to argue on Lily's side for once, and that made Lily stand up a bit taller and smirk proudly. "And her being nice just makes blokes think that she's flirting with them." She looked at Lily, who thought that it was a fair assessment. "You need to learn how to be mean, Lily." She said, causing Lily to raise her brows.

"I'm plenty mean." She crossed her arms over her chest.

"You get annoyed, but you don't get mean." Marlene said. "I mean when James told me that you suggested that he audition for the show- which was a lie- you didn't even call him out on it."

"You called him out! I didn't need to." She looked over at Sirius. "Also I knew he was being a git. Like you were being a git in the library, and I didn't feel the need to tell you that you were being a git, because I was pretty sure that you already knew."

"I did." He nodded. "And I wouldn't have listened to you anyway. But James definitely thinks you were flirting with him earlier. Which is fine, you should flirt with him. It makes him so happy," He held his hand over his chest and a stupid smile slipped onto his face and Lily frowned.

"I didn't flirt with anyone."

"I don't know if you did or didn't." Sirius said. "Only that my mate likes you, and that it's my job to tell you that he's really not a bad bloke and I think you should give him a chance."

She turned to Mary. "Clearly I should have stayed home."

Mary shrugged. "It's all going to be fine." But it didn't sound convincing in the slightest.

"Come on, Red. Let's get you something else to drink."

"That's all I want right now." She sighed, following Sirius back into the house and into the kitchen. The place seemed even more crowded now than the last time that she was in here. She managed to squeeze her way to the counter and dunked her cup into the bowl of punch since she didn't see the ladle anywhere.

She didn't know where Sirius had gone off to, but she hadn't planned on sticking with him anyway, so she made her way back out of the kitchen. She was trying to get back to the porch, so she could hang out with her friends some more, but she ended up in what would probably be a living room when it wasn't filled with dozens of drunk students, dancing horribly to some song that might not have lyrics.

"Lily?" She looked over and spotted James making his way toward her again. And just behind him, she saw Sirius, who winked at her as they made eye contact.

"'Lo, James." She said, tapping her fingers on the side of her glass, telling herself that it was in time with the music, but she couldn't have found a beat if she tried. The glass was sticky from having been dunked into the bowl of punch. So were her fingers. "You know I thought Sirius was walking me to the kitchen, but it turns out he had other plans."

"What was that?" He asked, not having heard her since he'd only just reached her side.

"Nothing. Just muttering about Sirius." He gave her a look but didn't press the subject. "I wasn't flirting with you." She blurted out. "Earlier when we were talking. I wasn't flirting." The look he was giving her only intensified.

"Okay," He said, his brow dropping from where it had been high on his forehead.

"And yesterday at the studio, I wasn't flirting then either." She took a fairly large drink and looked over at him.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair and Lily watched his hair get pulled back and then spring back to where it had been. He had very nice hair really. "Sirius just goes and tells you everything that I tell him, doesn't he?"

"I don't know. He makes stuff up too." She sighed, shaking her head. "I didn't believe him the other day in the library, but then you came and found me, so I was like, 'hmm, maybe he wasn't lying.' And now he found me again on the porch and I just feel like I need to tell you that I wasn't flirting with you. I've been told that my being nice gets misinterpreted a lot because I’m incapable of being mean."

"Am I coming on too strong? Is that the issue?"

"What?"

"I mean, I haven't been subtle about fancying you. And apparently Sirius has been being even less subtle about it. Probably because he's annoyed with me-"

"Because you haven't shut up about me for two years." She interjected, and he chuckled.

"You're a bit smashed, aren't you, Evans?"

"This is my fourth drink." She nodded. "I think it's my fourth drink…but who knows how much I’ve actually had to drink. How much vodka is in this?" She tried to remember how many she'd had, but it was a waste of time.

"I’m not sure. But yeah, I suppose I've been a bit hung up. I thought he would be glad that I've finally started talking to you instead of just admiring from afar-"

"What- Just-" She shook her head. "Admiring what from afar? And I'm not fishing for compliments or anything, it's just, I live in the studio and I don't really talk to anyone except my roommate and Marlene and occasionally Emmett so I don’t really know what you mean when you say that."

"Sure, but you're kind of brilliant." He said. "What with the show, and we've had classes together and my favorite moments were always when you started arguing with someone."

"I am known to argue- I should go and tell Marlene that. She’s the one who said that I can’t be mean."

"I've never seen you be mean."

"But I argue,"

"That's not mean though." He shrugged. "You're just passionate about things you care for and it's fun to watch." He was smiling at her again, with one of those jarring smiles that she just realized left her kind of breathless. It wasn't because his smile was brilliant so much as because… well maybe it was because his smile was brilliant. And he'd called her brilliant, that was nice too.

"Stop looking at me like that," She said when she found her voice again. He just laughed and looked out at the scene before them, thought Lily kept her eyes on his profile. If questioned, it was because she was making sure that he wouldn't start looking at her again. That would be a lie.

"Sorry, can't really help it. Though I suppose I can stop blathering on to Sirius about you all the time since he's clearly not interested in helping me out any."

"Well that's not really true." Lily said, bringing her cup back up to her lips. "He did just tell you that I was here, didn't he? And out on the porch he said-" She cut herself off and shook her head.

"What did he say?" He asked, looking back at her. She looked up at him and wondered if he'd been drinking too. If that was the real reason that he wanted to stand here at the edge of a party and talk to her about his feelings and let her tell him that she hadn't flirted with him. It would definitely be more fun to find someone to dance with, and he definitely wouldn't have a problem finding someone to dance with. Which had nothing to do with his looks, and just his status on campus.

Though maybe his looks should have been factored in. Because it wasn't just his hair and his smile that were wonderful looking. He had nice eyes too. Full of mirth and mischief almost constantly, and standing as close as they were just then, she could see swirls of green and gold in them. Even his nose was nice; long and slender and perfectly suited to the rest of his face. And his jaw-

"Evans?" He was smirking at her and she realized that she must have been staring.

"I'm sorry, I zoned out. What was your question?" She took another drink and tried to ignore his smirk. And what it did to her stomach.

"You were telling me what Sirius told you out on the porch." He said, and she remembered him asking her that, not that she'd been about to tell him.

"I was not telling you that," She huffed. "But I'm sure he'd tell you what he said should you ask."

"Was he being a proper mate then?" He asked, sounding amused.

"Yeah, he was being a proper mate." She nodded. “Sort of.” She added, remembering the marriage and babies comment.

"I knew he was a good mate."

"How did the two of you become friends in the first place?" She asked suddenly, remembering her musings from the library. "You two seem complete opposite one another. Other than the fact that you’re both very peculiar." James laughed at that and nodded his head.

"He's just dark and brooding. And angsty. He's a right laugh most of the time though. Also, I had no idea what he'd become when I met him. We were eleven." He laughed.

"Right. Is he into origami?"

James frowned and shook his head. "You weren't joking about the lily he made you?"

"No. I thought it was strange."

"Well he is strange." He shrugged.

"That he is," She nodded, feeling confident in her conclusion despite only having had a couple conversations with him.

"So if you're not going to tell me what he told you specifically out on the porch, will you tell me something else?"

"I suppose I have to say yes to that, or just walk away since saying no would mean that you had to keep up both sides of the conversation." She shrugged, taking another sip. "What do you want me to tell you?"

"Am I coming on too strong?" He repeated his question from earlier, eliciting an eye roll from her. "Is that a yes? I mean, I figured it was a yes, but…" He shrugged.

"You're a very confusing bloke," She said honestly.

"Confusing? I'm going to have to disagree with you there, I've been decidedly  _not_ confusing about-"

"You've been confusing," She said louder, interrupting him and holding up a finger. "Maybe you've not been confused, but I have." She leaned back against the wall and thought over everything that had happened in the last week. "I mean for goodness sakes – don't tell Sirius I said goodness sakes – You've only been around for the last week! Two weeks ago I didn't see you at all and now you're just-" She made some gesture with her hands and pursed her lips together. "You're just always here."

"Well I joined the show-"

"No. You sat down with me at the pub last weekend before that."

"And now you're at my party."

"Which I'm already regretting," She said, though she didn't know if that was true. It had seemed true out on the porch, but things seemed decidedly less confusing and upsetting when she was actually talking to James. That was mainly how she worked, she was brilliant at being upset or annoyed or nervous with people when she wasn't actually talking to them.

"No you're not," He said, sounding far more certain than she wanted him to.

"No, I'm not." She sighed. "Maybe. I don't know."

He chuckled and shook his head. "Alright, maybe you are a bit confused."

"S'not even the alcohols fault." And that actually was the truth.

"What is it that you're most confused about then?"

She looked over at him and thought about it for a moment. What was she most confused about? "Are you a nice bloke?" She asked. "Like truly?"

He raised a brow and ran a hand through his hair. "I mean I- is this because of the first time we met?"

"I mean that, but also your twitter is obnoxious and you're always running your hand through your hair like that, so it looks all tousled like it does after you get off the field, and you can be quite presumptuous. Sometimes I think that you think just because you're good at football you're entitled to other people's time or something. And you just insert yourself into situations, which I guess is another form of being presumptuous-"

"Alright," He interrupted, looking uncomfortable again.

"But then there's that," She pointed at his face. "Most of the time you act like this cocky sonofabitch, and then you do that," She pointed again.

"And what is it that I'm doing now?"

"The opposite of acting like a cocky sonofabitch!" She exclaimed. "And I mean, I get it, people are always giving you compliments and telling you how wonderful you are at whatever it is that you're doing, because people like you because you're good at football. But how much of that is a show? How much do you play it up?"

"You know I didn't think that this was how this conversation was going to go." He said. "Am I allowed to offer a rebuttal?"

"A rebuttal of my complaints?" She snorted and shrugged. "I mean, I'd expect nothing less from you."

"Well most of the time, Sirius runs my twitter. He also things I'm a umm… 'cocky sonofabitch' and so he posts all kinds of shit that I wouldn't post myself. And I promise you that my hair just naturally looks like this." He said, ruffling it up again.

"That's unlikely." She said, almost reaching up to touch it herself, but then she remembered that touching it wouldn't tell her if he was telling the truth or not.

"My hair was the bane of my mother's existence." He said, giving her a rueful smile. "Told me that it looked as though a mouse had crawled into it while I was sleeping and just started using it as a house." She almost laughed at that, because it did look as though a wild animal might call it home.

"I can't really argue your other points. I suppose I am rather presumptuous, but I have been trying to be less so around you."

"Alright," She allowed. "But you still think that I'm here for you,"

He shook his head, "I wish you were. But I'm not delusional."

She looked at him and pursed her lips. "See. You're confusing."

"I really don't mean to be. I suppose if I had just made a good impression the first go at it, things would have turned out much differently."

"Maybe," She shrugged. "Maybe not."

"Nah, I'm quite sure that they would have."

"I mean, if you hadn't told me to take your blatant ogling as a compliment, it wouldn't have hurt your case." He laughed, and she smiled.

"I still can't believe I said that." He muttered, shaking his head. "I mean, I should just be impressed that I got you to speak civilly with me. Gah, if my mother knew she might skin me alive."

"Helps that you feel bad about it too." She grinned. "And I listed some of the things I don't like about you but I mean, you're not a bad bloke, yeah? The people who watch the show seem to like you."

"Well I am dead set on impressing the people who watch the show." He smirked in a way that let her know he was being sarcastic. He probably cared what they thought, but he'd already said that it was her that he was trying to impress. "And I don't think it's just me that they're interested in."

"You got them to watch though."

"Yeah, but they like us. I mean, we were trending all week."

"Were we?" She asked. "I hadn't noticed."

"You know you're only giving clout to Sirius saying you're eighty years old."

"You can't give me shit for that, you weren't even there when he said it." She pouted, and he laughed.

"Well I feel like you should know how to use Twitter properly."

"I know how to use it enough," She shrugged. “But it was stressing me out so I stopped looking at it.”

"Well then yes, we were trending."

"How so? Any particular bits?" She was too tipsy to talk about the breakdown of the show, but even in this state of inebriation, she couldn't not be curious.

"No particular bits, no." He shook his head and reached his hand into his pocket, looking as though he was debating something. "They just like us I guess." He shrugged.

"You're not telling me something." She accused.

"Perhaps." He shrugged again and smiled at her.

"Is it about Twitter?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't really care right now."

"I didn't think you would." He grinned. "Besides, we can talk shop tomorrow. We're at a party right now, we should get back to our riveting conversation about all the things you hate about me."

It started as a snort, and then a reluctant giggle. And then she covered her mouth with her hands and let out another snort, because she didn't want to laugh. But he was just so blasé about it, and he was still standing there even though that was exactly what she was doing. She was drunkenly complaining about him while he was telling her that he fancied her. And it was funny. He didn't even seem as though  _he_ were complaining about it. And so, soon her snorting and giggling turned into an actual laugh and she had to grip his arm to keep herself upright.

It was a few moments before she was able to calm herself down, and she wiped a few small tears away from her eyes and shook her head, looking over at her.

"See  _that_ counted as you making me laugh." And he smirked, remembering what she'd told him in the pub last weekend. "And no, we don't have to talk about that anymore. We can talk about something else." She finished off her drink and looked around, setting her cup down and then wiping her sticky fingers on her skirt. "Or maybe we could dance." She shrugged, not feeling at all weird about the suggestion. It just seemed like what should come next in a way.

He obviously didn't feel that way, because when she looked over at him, his eyebrows had almost disappeared into his hair.

"What's the problem, cat got your tongue?" He shook his head and then he was smiling at her again, and it wasn't so jarring this time.

"No. I've still got my tongue, just forgot how to use it for a moment." He paused for a moment and then held out his hand. "Let's dance then." And she took his hand and let him lead her out onto the dance floor.

oOoOoOo

There came a point in every night that Lily was drinking, where she lost all sense of personal boundaries. And that was usually any time after her fourth drink. Especially if those drinks were fairly strong drinks, which they were as apparently that how Sirius and Peter made their drinks.

"You know," Lily said, seated (much) too close to James on a couch. The couch was in the backyard and in front of a bonfire. There were a few other couches around the firepit too, and quite a few people had moved out here though she hadn't a thought in her mind about where her friends had gone off to. "You know," She repeated. "I'm not entirely convinced that Peter is a real person."

James laughed and leaned closer to her. She could see the specks of gold in his eyes again and she was smiling widely. "What do you mean he's not a real person?" She didn't know when she decided she wanted to spend the evening with him, but she couldn't tear herself away now. She couldn't stop laughing, and she knew that it was because they were both fairly drunk and so she wasn't feeling like she had to be as reluctant or careful in the way she acted around him.

She was drunk, so she was just enjoying him.

"I mean you keep mentioning him but I've yet to see him!" She laughed, and he was still laughing. "And how long have I been here now? I've seen Sirius far more times than I'd care too, and Remus a few times, but I think Peter is imaginary."

"He's not imaginary.” James’ hand was in his hair.

"I think he might be. I think he was your friend when you were like four and you just keep talking about him now and Sirius and Remus just go along with it and feed your delusion."

"They are shite friends sometimes, so they might go along with something like that." He said, and she noticed that his arm was on the couch behind her. She wondered how long it had been there as she pulled her feet up onto the couch and got more comfortable. "But I promise that he's around."

"I'm not sure that I believe you," She grinned, turning to look into the fire. "What time is it?"

"Hell if I know." He shrugged, and she started laughing again though for the life of her, she didn't know why.

When she’d finished laughing, she took a deep breath and leaned back against the couch, her head now resting on his arm. They were quiet for a moment and then she felt his fingers in her hair. She turned to look at him with her brows raised.

“It looks kind of like magic in the firelit.” He said, his eyes sliding down her hair, but then they locked with hers and he smirked.

“S’probably because I’m a witch. Promise you won’t tell?” She held up her hand, extending her pinkie finger to him.

He laughed and nodded his head, raising his free hand to lock pinkies with her. “Promise I won’t tell so long as you promise not to turn me into a toad.”

“I mean, I promise, but if I did turn you into a toad, you couldn’t exactly tell anyone could you?” James scrunched up his face as he tried to work that out and then laughed again.   
“I guess I just figured I’d still have my voice as a toad.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t let you keep your voice. I might take that away and not bother turning you into a toad.” She was teasing him now, and if asked, she wouldn’t be able to vehemently deny flirting with him like she’d been able to earlier. At least she thought this counted as flirting.

“Okay, but then I could still tell someone about what you did. So long as I can still write.”

“See, it’s like you want me to turn you into a toad.” She giggled and felt his fingers start to run through her hair again. She looked into the fire and sighed contently.

“You promised not to.”

“So many other animals are still available though. A snail? A slug? Oo, or a raven? I think it’s be fun to be a raven.” She looked back at him and he was smiling at her. She smiled back at him. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just that you’re always telling me that I’m ridiculous and now you’re musing about turning me into a slug with your magic powers.”

“You’re the one who said that I look like magic.”

“You are magic.” He said, his voice dropping a bit. It sent a shiver up her spine and she sat up straighter.

“What does that even mean?” She asked, laughing because it was all too much, and she was drunk. James shrugged a shoulder and Lily leaned back onto his arm and let him continue to play with her hair.

oOoOoOo

They moved back into the house when Lily said that she was cold. He’d offered to get her a jumper from his room, but the stairs were much harder to maneuver than either one of them had thought that they’d be, so they just sat on the landing, trapped between the upstairs and the downstairs.

“We’ll be forced to sober up at least.” James mused, leaning back against the wall and looking over the crowd of people at the bottom of the stairs who were still dancing.

“You’re right.” She shook her head, “We have no more alcohol up here.” She giggled and maneuvered herself about so that her legs were on the railing and her back on the wall. “How do they all have so much energy? I was whipped after… how long did we dance?” She looked over at him and James pushed his glasses up his nose.

“I don’t remember how long. A couple songs at least.” His eyes looked a bit glazed over, and Lily assumed it was alcohol related. “I was surprised when you asked me to dance.”

“I was surprised when you started playing with my hair.” He smirked at her.

“I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t draped yourself across me.”

Lily snorted and pushed her hair away from her face. She wasn’t cold anymore, it was too warm in the house for that. “You put your arm behind me, I just slouched against it. Clearly, I don’t have fantastic posture,” She motioned to her current position.

He laughed and then moved so that he was sitting against the same wall as her. “Alright, I should have said that I wouldn’t have been playing with your hair if you hadn’t been smiling at me like you were.”

“You smile at me a lot.” Lily said, thinking back to how those smiles had made her feel back in the pub. “Kind of knocks me off balance sometimes.”

“You flirting with me, Lily?”

She laughed, because she’d been flirting with him for a while now and she knew that he was just teasing her. “I didn’t mean it in a good way. It was half the reason everything was so confusing.”

“Oh?” He raised his brow and leaned his head against the wall while he was still looking at her.

“Made me feel like you knew something about me that I didn’t know.”

“What about now?”

“Still feel a bit off balance when you smile at me.” She bit her lip. “But it’s not such a terrible thing.” She was aware of how close they were, how secluded this area of the house felt. There were so many people not that far away, but no one was paying them any mind. Her head was still swimming and she briefly considered what it would feel like if she just leaned over and kissed him. If her stomach was flipping when he smiled at her, and she got chills when he said nice things to her, she could only imagine how it would feel to kiss him.

She shook her head and ran both hands through her hair, pulling it up in a plait. “Good news is that I’m no longer cold.”

“Bad news?”

“We’re still stranded here and now for no reason at all.” She shrugged her shoulder and moved so her feet were on the stairs instead of the rails. “You think someone would get us food if we asked?”

“Depends who you ask.” Lily looked down to try and spot someone that she knew. Emmett stood out among the crowd as tall people tended to do.

“Emmett!” She shouted, waving her hands about as though she were actually stranded somewhere and trying to get help.

James spotted him to and moved so that he could help Lily get his attention. “Dackery!” He shouted. “We need food!” Lily laughed and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Remember when you thought I was dating him?”

“Good thing you aren’t, or he’d want to beat me up.” He said, his head tilted. Lily just laughed again.

“Emmett!”

oOoOoOo

And then it was impossibly later, and she was standing in a kitchen that was no longer crowded with James and his mates, and her mates had found her again and everyone was plastered so if anyone thought it was strange that she'd been with James all night, she couldn't tell.

He'd made quite a show of introducing her to Peter after all her joking that he was imaginary, and the poor bloke didn't understand why Lily couldn't stop laughing at him. She had to hold onto James' arm to stay on her feet yet again.

She was holding a glass of water now though, and she didn't remember who had given it to her, but she knew that she hadn't the foresight at the moment to remember to drink some water. Mary and Em were across from her and Mary was falling asleep on the other girl's shoulder. Marlene was perched up on the counter, crouched over with her chin rested on her palm. Remus was sitting on the counter next to her, and Sirius was laying on the floor for some reason that Lily couldn't remember, but every so often she would kick his foot to make sure he was still awake. And Peter, who hadn't really warmed up to Lily yet, was standing in front of a bowl of mostly broken pretzels and picking through them.

She leaned against James, her head resting against her shoulder and sighed. She saw him shift his beer from one hand to the other and thought for a moment that he was going to put an arm around her. He seemed a bit unsure of himself now that the party was over and they were all sobering up.

"It’s too late," Emmeline said before letting out a colossal yawn. "Though you four do know how to put on a party."

"You know," Sirius said from the floor, "I think this is the first time that all four of us have made it to the end of a party."

"I think you're right," Remus said, narrowing his brow as he tried to remember.

"Does you laying on the floor like that, count as making it?" Marlene asked, tiredly twirling a curl around her finger. She was always messing with her hair like that, but the simple action currently looked as though it was requiring a vast amount of effort.

"We're all still conscious so it counts." He nodded very slowly.

"You four are more than welcome to crash in the living room in you want." Remus offered, and Lily felt James shift beside her. It was a tempting offer, because the thought of taking the train home now seemed like it was too much work, but the thought of waking up on a floor or a couch instead of her bed was just terrible.

Emmeline had somehow become the girl's leader of the night. If Lily wasn't so drunk, she would notice that Emmeline was fairly sober, and that was the reason she was the leader. "I think I'll manage to corral them all back to Lily and Mary's place."

"You sure?" Peter asked, "The pull out is a lot more comfortable than you'd think."

"Sure, but we're not all going to fit."

"I don't think all of you need to fit," Sirius said from the floor, and Lily didn't remember kicking him, but she felt his foot knock into hers.

"Sorry," She muttered, not having realized that he'd been the one to kick her. He snorted in response and James shifted again so Lily stood up and then leaned against the counter.

"I think we should all get home," Emmeline said, not leaving any room for debate. "Marlene, how are you fairing?" Lily's eyes followed Emmeline's to Marlene.

"I've had far less to drink than Lily and far more than you so…" She shrugged. "I'm not going to vomit, and I'm not drooling on your shoulder like Mary,"

"Nor are you answering my question."

"You can trust me to be helpful." She rolled her eyes. "And just because I decided to like you doesn't mean that I can't-"

"Great, hold Mary while I go and find all our stuff."

"Did we bring stuff?" Lily asked, standing up right and taking a drink of her water, flinching slightly as she'd forgotten that she was drinking water.

"You're currently barefoot," Em smirked, "You did bring shoes, right?"

Lily realized how drunk she was then and started laughing again.

"Mary wasn't kidding when she said you turned into a maniac, was she?" That only made Lily laugh more, and then she had to excuse herself to use the restroom.

When she came out, Em was trying to get Mary into her shoes and Marlene was acting as though she was going to help them clean up. "Don't worry about it," Remus was saying, and James was standing off to the side. She assumed Sirius was still on the floor.

She walked up to James and nudged her elbow against his. He looked over at her and then reached up to push his glasses up his nose. Another tick of his that she'd noticed. "So, are you glad you came?" He asked, and she snorted and rolled her eyes.

"No. Terrible party. Worst I've ever been to actually." He looked down at his feet with a smile on his lips and laughed quietly. "Stop fishing for compliments. You're terrible."

"Maybe." He shrugged. "But you've yet to give me a compliment so I've got to keep fishing."

"Stop asking for them and maybe I'll stop feeling like you'd be a massive prat if I ever said something nice." He chuckled again.

"You know, some of these things just can't be helped."

"You being a massive prat being one of those things, yes?"

"Of course. I don't really know any other way to act." He smirked, and she smiled back.

"I had fun tonight."

"Even though you didn't come to see me."

"I didn't," She said sharply. "I came because you invited all my friends-"

"You didn't really hang out with all your friends."

"I did to." She waved away his comment. "Just because I wasn't able to get rid of you for most of the night doesn't mean that I didn't also hang out with them. We were all just hanging out in the kitchen."

"I'm pretty sure that counts as being  _after_ the party ended though." She shrugged, not having a response and not caring to argue.

"I was just trying to say that I had fun, you didn't have to turn it into something," She said, sticking him with a look.

"Right, I'm just proving that you really can't say nice things to me, aren't I?" She nodded, and he grinned a bit wider. She chuckled and then leaned forward to hug him. He seemed surprised at first, but it didn't take more than a few seconds for him to wrap his arms around her in return.

"I had fun too," He said.

"I know." She grinned.

"Lily, come and get your shoes on please." She heard Marlene call. She squeezed him a bit tighter and then let her arms loosen around him and she leaned back, her hands still resting on his shoulders.

"I forgot that I wasn't wearing shoes again." She grinned.

"You got rid of them a while ago."

"I'm not much of a shoe wearer."

And she didn't hear what he said next because somehow her gaze had locked onto his lips for the briefest of moments before shifting back up to look him in the eye. And without any warning, she leaned over and kissed him. A chaste peck to the lips that just barely lasted two seconds, before she pulled back, still smiling at him, and let her hands fall to her sides. As though kissing him like that, all nonchalantly and carefree, was something that she did often.

"I'll see you tomorrow." She said and then turned toward the front door and walked off to get her shoes on.

If she hadn't been drinking so much, she would have noticed the look of absolute shock that crashed over James' face the moment her lips pulled away from his. If she hadn't walked off so quick, he would have been able to gather his bearings in enough time to snake his arms around her waist and kiss her properly; something that he'd been wanting to do all night. Something she’d been considering for a good part of the night.

But it had only been a couple of seconds, and then she was gone.

oOoOoOo

They were on the train and halfway home when the reality of what she'd done hit her.

"Oh shit." She muttered, suddenly sitting upright and pressing her lips together.

"I swear to god, Lily, if you puke on this train, I'll never forgive you." Marlene said, eyeing her wearily.

"Oh shit." She said again, shaking her head. "I kissed him. I kissed James Potter. "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is where you're going to start noticing a lot of new stuff, if you've already read this before. If not, just be glad that I've already fixed this fic lol  
> Review and let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

The following day Lily was extremely hung over; as expected of course. And after the morning slugged by, and it came time to get ready to head onto campus, she was still feeling rather terrible since she had done nothing by way of making herself feel  _not_ hung over.

Of course, there were things that she  _could_  have done to counter this. She could have showered, eaten a proper meal, drank copious amount of water or tea or any other number of things that helped relieve hangovers. Come three o'clock though, she was still in her bed, wearing the clothes that she had managed to pull on last night before passing out into a fitful sleep.

The only things she'd managed to do to keep herself from feeling worse, was keep away from her phone. She had a feeling that she might have a few texts from a certain someone in particular, and she wasn't sure that she was ready just yet to come up with anything to say.

Marlene knocked on her door at three, the first time anyone had come to check on her, to her knowledge anyway. She was sleeping most of the morning. "We've got to get going, Lils." She said, sounding as though she wasn't feeling much better than Lily felt.

"I know," She called back and looked over at the mirror next to her dresser and sighed. She looked like some sort of zombie that had gotten drunk and snogged a bloke that she shouldn't have snogged.

Well, she hadn’t really _snogged_ him. She couldn’t even remember what the kiss had felt like, she just knew that she’d kissed him without rhyme or reason.

There _were_ reasons, but she didn’t want to get into those.

She'd been going over it since she woke up. She had, of course, gotten drunk and snogged people before. Not all that many, but it had happened. Given her tendencies to disregard personal space and to become overly friendly with strangers, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone.

But she'd kissed  _James_.

And even if she hadn't kissed him, she was fairly sure that she would have been in trouble because she'd spent the entire evening with James. She'd spent the entire evening laughing with him and leaning up against him and meeting his mates and smiling much to widely and flirting way too much. And she'd had a lot of fun. That last part wasn't lost to her, but it wasn't doing much to calm her nerves.

She was in big trouble. And she wasn't sure how she felt about that yet.

But she did have somewhere to get to, so she dragged herself out of bed and walked over to her dresser. It was not a day that she was going to get properly dressed, so she pulled on a an oversized sweater, tied her hair into as neat a plait as she could get it, did her best to make her face look like it was not a zombie who had been suffering from anxiety for the last twelve hours and called it good.

When she made it out to the kitchen, she saw that Marlene had made her a thermos of tea and had a piece of toast prepared for her as well. "You're so sweet to me," She sighed, picking up the toast and taking a bite.

"Well I know you haven't eaten anything since you've been locked in your room all morning."

"Then you know I've managed not to throw up either," She said, quirking a brow. "And that's an accomplishment."

"You did drink a lot." She grinned. "But you seemed like you were having fun." Lily closed her eyes and took another bite of the toast. "Not ready yet? Alright. Is he going to be there today?" Lily shrugged one of her shoulders, but she wasn't trying to convince herself that he wouldn't be there. He would be there, and she would have to talk to him. What she was going to say though… that was lost to her.

They made their way to the tube and Lily sat with her head resting on her knees, trying her best not to let the bumping and screeching get to her, though Marlene did inform her that she looked awfully pale after they got to their stop. Lily huffed and took a few sips of her tea. "There are many reasons for that." She sighed.

"Yeah, we're getting close," She nodded, a small smile forming. They started walking down the concrete toward campus. It was only a five-minute walk from the train to the studio and Lily could feel her stomach clenching for non-train related reasons.

"Can you try not to outwardly enjoy my suffering." She asked after noticing the smile on Marlene's face.

"Oh, stop being so dramatic."

"I'm allowed to be dramatic. I'm severely hung over."

"You know you could probably get away with pretending that you don't remember snogging him, right?"

She sighed, "I thought about that." She took another sip of her tea and stepped over a puddle. "I don't think I can do that. I'm a terrible liar and I'd just end up feeling terrible. More terrible. There's no way I get out of this not feeling slightly terrible is there? I mean I knew that he liked me and I…" She trailed off when she heard Marlene start laughing and looked over. "What?"

"Don't start pretending that you somehow took advantage of his feeling, love. You snogged him because you wanted to snog him. You had a nice night with him and you spent the entire time flirting and-"

"I know what happened," She snapped. "But that doesn't mean that I want to date the boy." She muttered.

"I didn't say that you wanted to date him. I was going to get there, but I have yet to say it." Lily shot her a look and Marlene winked at her. "I know that you're going to be stubborn, because it's in your nature, but just remember that you don't  _have_ to be."

"What is that supposed to mean? I'm not being stubborn! I'm just- I mean I've only been talking to James for about a week now. Is it really so strange that I don'twant to date him?"

"No it's not. I know that you'll probably need to know him a bit longer to feel more comfortable, but I think you should admit that you do feel awfully-"

"I'm going to have to keep interrupting you if you keep saying ridiculous things." Lily huffed. "You can't know that I'll eventually want to date him-"

"And I'll interrupt you if you keep saying ridiculous things. Though I suppose you didn't see yourself with him last night. You have to remember how you felt, yeah? You couldn't stop smiling or laughing and it was quite adorable."

"I was drunk." Lily said, not at all amused.

"I know." Marlene shrugged, still smiling. They were approaching the studio now. "Well I hope you work out whatever it is that you're going to do."

Lily let out another sigh and shook her head, slowly as not to upset her hangover too much. "I have no idea what I'm going to do."

“Well keep in mind that that boy seems to adore you.” Marlene let go of the end of one of her curls and it bounced back into place among the others. “Adore you,” She repeated. Lily glared at her and then pushed the door open.

And then they were walking into the building and Lily was out of time. They made it down stairs and Marlene took hold of Lily's arm when she started to slow down, which was probably a good thing because Lily might have lost her nerve to enter the room. What if he was already there? What if she accidentally made eye contact with him before she was ready? What if she just kissed him again without meaning too? She didn’t think that she could even trust herself around him anymore.

They made it to the writer's room and took their usual seats near the front of the room, without incident. Most people were already there, and Lily busied herself with her bag and her notebook, so she wouldn't have to look around. She felt someone sit down on her other side, and since they were doing a run through, she knew that it would be James. The anchors always sat next to one another at the read throughs. She instantly tensed.

"Looks like quite a few people are hungover." Marlene mused, obviously not sharing Lily's nerves in looking around the room. But now that she knew where James was, she looked up and saw that Emmett was on the other side of the room with his head down on the desk and his arms around him, looking as though he were trying to protect himself. Amelia was taking some Tylenol over by the coffee machine and there were a few others looking like this was the last place that they wanted to be.

"I suppose that's a bit comforting somehow." Lily said, taking another sip of her tea.

"Well that and the fact that you made it through the train without puking. Twice."

"I have yet to puke," Lily grinned slightly and then started organizing her desk anxiously.

"Here you go, Lily." A first year named Henry Cobbs handed her the script that they'd be reading through first. "And James," He handed another one to the person seated next to her.

"Thanks, Henry." James said, and Lily could picture him pushing his glasses up his nose, despite the fact that she still hadn't looked over at him.

"Thank you," She said, giving the boy a nod. She took a deep breath and decided that if she waited any longer it would be worse. "How are you fairing?" She asked, slowly turning her head to look at James. He actually looked completely fine to her. He wasn't slightly pale, he didn't look like he was in pain or in danger of vomiting.

"This morning was rough," He said, and Lily couldn't tell what he was thinking. "But I showered, and Remus made everyone breakfast. We've actually got a pretty good hangover cure put together." He shrugged. "I'm alright now, I think. You?" Lily raised a brow and the corner of his mouth turned up. "Well I heard that you managed not to vomit, so that's a plus."

"It is." She nodded and then ran a hand through the hair that had fallen out of her plait. "But I've seen better days. Much better."

"You were pretty far gone last night," He said, and she felt her stomach flip and her palms get clammy. And that was just because he mentioned last night, he had yet to bring up anything specific.

"I was," She agreed and luckily, Amelia stood up and cleared her throat, making everyone turn to look at her.

"Alright, let's get through this so that we can all go back to bed." She sighed, holding her clipboard against her chest and closing her eyes for a second. "Thanks again for throwing that party last night, James." She said, giving him a wry smile.

"Any time," He said cheerfully, and Lily caught herself smiling before she took another drink of her tea to hide the smile. Then she remembered what Marlene said about her being stubborn and rolled her eyes. She wasn't stubborn. She was hiding her smile because James was ridiculous, that was it.

_You are magic_ , he’d said.

She gripped her thermos tighter.

They started going through the read and then went through what they had put together for the second and third shows of the week as well, and everyone was fairly motivated to get done quickly, so they did. Lily felt herself tripping over the words, which wasn't something that she normally did, but she was hung over, so there was nothing she could do, and no one seemed to be holding it against her. James didn't seem to be having any problems at all and Lily couldn't find the energy to be annoyed with him because of it.

Eventually they were done, and everyone started filing out. A few of them had things that they needed to do before leaving, but Lily was not one of them. Marlene packed up her stuff and then reached over and gave Lily a hug. "I'm headed home now, I'll see you tomorrow." Lily kissed her cheek and then sat back down to pack up her things.

"Where are you headed?" James asked, drawing her attention back to him. They hadn't talked to one another except for reading the script since the read through had started and Lily couldn't tell if that was normal or not, but she still thought it was strange that he hadn't brought up anything that had happened last night. She had kissed him after all and he hadn't said anything about it.

"I'm not sure yet," She said, shoving her notebook and now empty thermos into her bag, along with her handful of pens and pencils that she'd had out. "The library seems like the smart option, since I've yet to do most of my homework." She sighed and rested her head on her desk for a moment.

"Looks like you could use some food." He said, and she could tell that he was smiling. She turned her head and looked at him. He was smiling. "Some coffee at least."

"Some more sleep, a shower, three or four less drinks than I had last night," She said, grinning a bit herself. It was like she couldn't keep the smile off her face anymore. She couldn't find it in her to be annoyed anymore and she just kept smiling. Things only got worse when he smiled back at her.

"Well I can't really help you with any of those."

"Yeah, I should have taken better care of myself this morning." She sighed, remembering how nervous and anxious she'd been this morning. It was just like yesterday now that she thought about it. Before she'd gotten to the party, she'd been a ball of nerves, and then she was there and talking to him and she'd been fine. She'd spent the entire evening with him.

That seemed to be a theme with her. And with him. She was only nervous and confused and annoyed when he wasn't actually there in front of her. When he wasn't smiling at her and making her laugh. And again, she didn't know how she felt about that.

"It's hard to convince yourself to get out of bed sometimes." He shrugged. "I had to make sure I was good because I have practice tonight and I'd get benched if I showed up hung over."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Happened a couple times my first year." He ran a hand through his hair. "Anyway, you wanna grab something to eat?" He said it in an off-handed manner, but Lily could see that he wasn't entirely sure of himself. She could see the hesitation in his eyes and it did nothing to calm her stomach that was now clenching again after a moment of calm. How important was her answer here? How much weight was this one answer going to have?

Why did she always have to overthink everything?

She chewed on her lip for a moment as she zipped up her bag and then shrugged her shoulder. "I probably should," She said, trying to use the same nonchalant tone that he had used. She knew that neither one of them were fooling the other, but it made her feel better to do it and he seemed to be of the same mindset.

"Have you eaten anything today?" He asked, sounding like some of the nerves had left his system now that she'd agreed.

"Just tea and a slice of toast." She said, standing up and hitching her bag up her shoulder.

"Should we go to that breakfast place or to Hoppers?" He asked, and she was glad that he gave her only two options, because anything more than that would require too much thought.

"Hoppers?" She asked. "I still might want to go to the library so best stay on campus."

"Also, you like Hoppers."

"It's one of my favorites." She grinned, and he smiled back at her and she felt her stomach relax again. This roller coaster wasn't fun on a good day, and all the back and forth, mixed with her hang over, was even less fun. And yet she was going with him anyway.

No one tried to stop her to talk as they made their way out of the studio as they might have if they hadn't all been so miserable, so it wasn't too long before they were out of the building and on their way to the café.

"So what time is your practice then?" It was already five thirty, but Lily didn't know anything about the football team and their schedule.

"Tonight is just conditioning. Seven to nine." He shrugged. "Nothing too intense."

"Yeah? Well that's a good thing for a Sunday night practice."

He nodded, "We'll go over the game from yesterday- you do remember that there was game yesterday, yeah?" He teased.

She rolled her eyes, "Yes, I remember that there was a game yesterday. You told me." She grinned a bit and looked over at him.

"Ah," He chuckled. "I forgot about that. A lot happened yesterday." And just like that her face was heating up and she was looking back down at the ground. She didn't say anything or look over at him and he was quiet for a moment. She got the feeling that he was waiting for her to say something, but she didn't know what the hell she was supposed to say. She'd never managed to work it out, so she didn't say anything.

He cleared his throat. "So, is this how Sunday's normally run?"

"What?" She asked, surprised by the sudden change of topic.

"Well last Sunday were the auditions. I was just wondering if this is how things normally go."

"Oh. Yes. Normally we have a main run-through on Sunday and the run-throughs throughout the week are much shorter than they were last week. Tomorrow you don't have to show up until five thirty or so." She said, glad he remembered to ask since she would have felt bad if he'd showed up at four thirty again like last week.

He nodded, "Alright, that makes sense."

"Yeah, the writers wanted to make sure whatever they had fit for whoever ended up as the anchor, and we can't have a long impromptu meeting in the middle of the week, so we just had them before the shows." They reached the coffee shop and James pulled the door open, letting her walk through first.

She walked in and let the familiar atmosphere wash over her but paused by the door so that James could walk in as well. He did and didn't seem to expect her to be waiting for him there. He made an 'omf' noise as he almost stepped on the heels of her feet and then his hand was on the small of her back. "You want to sit by the window?" He asked, and she could hear his voice got tense, same as she did.

"Yeah, that's good." She said, quickly stepping away from him and toward the window. She slid into the booth and put her bag down on the seat next to her, pulling her phone out and clicking it on, needing to keep her hands busy for a moment. She was surprised, and a bit relieved to see that she had no texts from James earlier that day. There was one from Mary wishing her luck and there was a twitter notification at the top of her phone that had been there all week. She almost decided to click on it when the waitress walked over and smiled at her and then at James.

"Well look who we have here." She said, and Lily smiled as she put her phone down.

"'Lo," James greeted her as well.

"Lily Evans and James Potter. Everyone has been seeing a lot of the pair of you lately." Her nametag said Alice. Lily had definitely seen her around. She was fairly sure that she was a grad student.

"Yeah, the news show has gotten pretty popular." James grinned.

"I wonder why," The waitress chuckled and then tapped her pencil against her pad of paper. "What can I get you two?" She asked.

"Can I get a coffee, pancakes and hash?" Lily asked, not needing to look at the menu. She was here more than she was in her flat during the week.

"I'll have a ham sandwich." James said. "And ice water with lemon."

"Side?" She asked.

"An apple if you have red?"

"We do." She nodded.

"I think that'll be all then." He tapped his fingers along the table and Lily picked up her phone again. Without really thinking about it, she clicked on the notification and her eyes narrowed when she first started looking over it all. She scrolled through everything that she'd been tagged in quickly.

"Is this…" She trailed off for a moment, continuing to flip through everything. "Is this what you were talking about yesterday?" She asked, turning her phone around so he could see what she was looking at. He took a slow breath and then nodded.

"Yeah, I told you people have been talking about us." He said. "Though I wish you weren't just finding out about it  _now_."

"I told you that I’ve been avoiding it," She shook her head and then looked down at her phone again. "What is this? Hashtag  _Jily_? There are so many pictures of us!"

"They're just screenshots from the show." James said as though that was supposed to make it not strange to her.

"I know where they're from, but…" She shook her head again and put her phone down and pushed it away from her as though that might make it all disappear.

"It doesn't matter." He said, sitting up a bit straighter.

"Why are people- I mean they shouldn't do things like that. Why do they want to-" She wasn't sure what she was trying to say. "They're  _shipping_ us." She said, as though it was a scandalous thing. James gave her that half smirk of his and nodded.

"They've been doing it since-"

"Since you posted that picture." She said, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the seat.

"Sure, but the whole 'hashtag jily' thing started after our first show. They seem to like it when we go off script and banter back and forth. They think we're flirting." His hand disappeared into his hair again and she huffed.

"Why does everyone always think I'm flirting with you?" She asked.

"Well-"

"That was a rhetorical question." She snapped.

He pressed his lips together in an attempt to stop himself from smiling. It didn't work. "You know, at least you're getting some of your color back now." He chuckled, and Lily's frown deepened.

Alice came back with their drinks and set them down on the table in front of them. James picked up his water and hid his mouth behind it. It didn't do anything more than pressing his lips together had since she knew that he was still smirking.

"I don't flirt with you on the show."

"I didn't say that you did." He said. Alice had just started walking away when she spoke, and Lily saw her hesitate for a moment before continuing back towards the counter.

"I don't normally flirt with you." She added, turning to look out the window.

"Again, I didn't say that you did." She looked over at him and then huffed, reaching over for the container of sugar at the end of the table and pouring maybe a little too much into her coffee. She picked up her spoon and stirred it. James started tapping his fingers on the table top again and Lily tapped her spoon on the edge of her cup and set it aside.

"It's weird, isn't it?" She said, looking up at him.

He nodded and then shrugged. "I mean, yes, it is weird. But I'd rather this overwhelmingly positive response as opposed to the opposite."

"We wouldn't kick you off the show if people were being stupid. I mean we're not used to people watching anyway."

"That's not what I meant." He said with a small smile.

"Then what did you mean?"

"Well I'm not sure I should tell you now. Not after how you reacted to seeing all that." He chuckled, but his ears were getting red again.

"Come on James," She sighed. "You can't do that. You can't tell me the beginning of something and then just stop."

"Well alright, but you can't freak out on me again."

"I can't promise you that." She muttered, picking up her coffee cup. He hesitated and then sighed in defeat.

"Well I'm in the public eye quite a bit yeah? And it's happened before where when I start… getting closer with someone, a girl someone. And well, people will decide that they don't like her, and it never takes too long after that for her to decide that hanging around me isn't really worth the trouble." He took another sip of his water. "Not that I can blame them," He said quickly.

She knew that he'd been careful to avoid words that would definitely make her squirm, words like 'dating' and 'girlfriend.' Though that would have been ridiculous, as she definitely wasn't anywhere close to being his girlfriend, and they hadn't been on any dates. Using those words would have meant that that's what he was thinking however. Not that she didn't already know that, but she definitely would have squirmed if he'd solidified that here and now.

"Right." She said, trying not to sound stiff. "I can see how that would be frustrating."

"I know you don't want to date me," There was a 'yet' hidden at the end of his sentence that she wished she hadn't heard. "I'm just saying that with all the other things that I have working against me, it’s kind of nice that I don’t have to add this to the list."

She shifted in her seat and pulled her feet up on the seat to cross under her.

"You're really not comfortable with talking about this are you? Like even like this, where we're not actually talking about it?" He looked amused and Lily felt her stomach clench again.

"I kissed you last night." She blurted out, shocking both of them. Though by this point, she couldn't help it could she? It needed to be said. "Last night I  _had_  been flirting with you and at the end of it all I kissed you and I don't know what to make of it all and I've only known you for a week and I know that you fancy me so it makes it all that much more complicated. And then you just go on and casually mention things and-"

"Lily," He interrupted pushing his glasses up his nose and then running his hand through his hair. She was making him extra nervous it seemed, if he needed to do two of his nervous ticks in a row like that. "We had fun last night, I know that that's all it was." He said, and she started shaking her head. "I wasn't expecting anything from you today. Honestly."

"But I knew that you fancied me, and I kissed you and I-"

"I'm not upset about it." He assured her, and she couldn't help but to snort.

"I didn't say that you were." She said, letting her head drop down to her shoulder. "I just don't want you to think that I'm… I don't know, being flippant or something?"

He shook his head. "What is it like up in that head of yours?" And she laughed again, this time to show her self-depreciation, but still.

"It can be very stressful."

"We've only known each other for a week, like you said. And just because I've liked you longer than that doesn't mean that you have to be careful around me or something." He shrugged. She didn't know if that's what she'd been trying to say or not, but she was glad that he was being so calm about all of this, at least he appeared calm. It would have been awful if they were both being as ridiculous as she felt she was being.

She started chewing on her lip and then took a sip of her coffee instead. "So, what you're saying is that I just need to calm down?"

"I'd never say that." He grinned. "You might hit me or something."

She rolled her eyes. "I do need to calm down." She said.

"Alright, but I didn't say it."

She let a breath out of her nose and then picked up her coffee, taking another sip. Alice came back after a moment of silence and placed their orders in front of them. "Refill?" She asked both of them, and they both shook their heads and she grinned and walked away.

“So now what?” Lily asked, rubbing her thumb up and down the side of her mug. “You’re just fine with going on like last night… Like it never happened?”

James made a face and shook his head. “Oh no, it definitely happened. You threatened to turn me into a toad after I told you that you had magic hair, we stranded ourselves on the stairs, you almost fell asleep on me in the kitchen- all of that definitely happened.” Lily furrowed her brow and waited for him to get to the part where she kissed him. “But like I told you last night, I’m not delusional. I may wish that you’d meant to kiss me last night, that you’d meant it in the way that I would have, had I kissed you instead. But I know that you didn’t.”

Lily had goosebumps all up and down her arms. He’d wanted to kiss her last night. She could have guessed if she’d wanted to, but she hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to remain ignorant. Why was that? She’d never been this finicky and panicked about a boy before. Why did James have her so on edge?

“Then why aren’t you upset with me?” She asked, letting go of her mug and lacing her fingers together tightly. “I’d be upset if I were you.”

James grinned and rested his elbow on the table, letting his chin fall onto his palm. “Why would I be upset? You came to the party, _dead set_ on avoiding me for the whole night.” He paused as though he expected her to contradict him, but she didn’t. She had been quite set on avoiding him. “And then _you_ asked _me_ to dance. I feel as though, in the grand scheme of things, I made a lot of progress last night.” He took a sip of his water and Lily grinned at him, letting go of her fingers.

She hadn’t considered it like that. She’d been so caught up about the kiss that she hadn’t let herself think of everything else that had happened.

Alice came with their food and placed it before them. “Is there anything else that I can get you two?” She asked, smiling at the both of them.

“No thank you,” Lily said, picking up her fork and forcing herself to take a large bit of hash. The faster she got food into her system, the faster her hangover would disappear completely.

“You know what I’m grateful for?” She asked, taking a bite of her pancakes now. “That no one posted any pictures of you and I from last night.” James snorted, his mouth full of his sandwich.

“Yes, you’d have a much harder time denying things to the public that way.”

“I’m not denying anything to the public.” She made a face at him.

“Right, you’re just not commenting at all. Ignoring them like you did when I did it.”

“Yes, but I was ignoring you intentionally. I didn’t know that people had made a smash up of our names. And a weird one at that.”

“I thought so too, until Sirius told me that the alternative was ‘lames’ and then I was pretty okay with ‘jily’ being the one that gained traction.”

“Did he try and get ‘lames’ in the mix?” She asked, lowering her fork for a moment.

“Of course he did. He thought he was a fucking genius when he came up with it.” Lily nodded and then took another bite.

“That’s exactly what I was expecting you to say.”

“Well that’s good.”

“Why?” Lily asked.

“Means you getting less confused if you know what I’m going to say.”

She pressed her lips together. “I’m not so sure about that. I think it just means that Sirius is very predictable, and I can picture him laughing at you as he tweets out ‘lames’ in all capitals. If I looked up his tweet, it would probably say something like….” She took another bite. “ _If you’ve ever met either one of them, you’d all think ‘lames’ was more appropriate too.”_

James laughed and nodded his head. “You have the spirit of what he said captured. And that actually sounded like him exactly.”

“He’s predictable.” She shrugged.

“I can’t wait to tell him that you said that.” He grinned, taking another bite of his sandwich. “He’s going to be pissed.”

“Nah, he likes me.” She reached for her coffee again. How had she only eaten toast all day? She was starving.

James was quiet after she said that, and she glanced up at him between bites and raised her brows when she found him looking at her. It reminded her of how he’d been looking at her last night when they were sitting around the bonfire.

And even still, she reached up to make sure that she didn’t have food on her face. He smirked when he saw her do that.

“What?” She asked, letting her fork clink against her plate.

“Nothing. I’m just feeling good today. That’s all.”

“You stare at people while they’re trying to eat when you feel good?” She shook her head and took another bite.

“I want to tell you that I think you’re pretty, but I’m afraid that if I do it now, you’ll take it the wrong way.”

Lily wanted to roll her eyes, but she also didn’t want to prove him right, so she refrained. “I am not very pretty right now. I look like death come to life.” She’d seen her reflection before she left the house that morning, she knew what she was representing this afternoon.

“So a zombie?” He asked, scrunching his nose slightly. Lily laughed and shook her head.

“That’s exactly right.” She nodded. Her plate was nearly empty now. “I should probably head over to the library and try to be productive.”

James nodded, “How long you think you’ll be in the library?”

“Few hours probably.” She sighed, because thinking about being in the library for a few hours made her want to crawl back to her bed and curl up in a ball. But she was responsible even in the wake of her having been irresponsible, so she would go to the library and she would do her homework.

“Well if that’s your plan, I can take you back to your flat afterward. Practice gets out at nine.” She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes slightly.

“You don’t have to-“

“I know that I don’t have to.” He interrupted her. “But I want to, and I thought you might like a break from the train after all the troubles it’s given you in the last day or so. Also, if I take you back to your flat, then I’ll know that you got there safely.”

“The train station isn’t that far from the library.”

“It’s a twenty-minute walk.” James countered before picking up his glass and draining the rest of his water. “That’s sort of far.”

“Okay, but I do it all the time. I’ll be fine.”

“I know that you’ll be fine, because I’ll pick you up from the library at nine.” He grinned, setting his glass down with a ‘clink.’ “Look, I think we’re friends now, which means that I’m going to worry about you. It’s what I do.”

She sighed and leaned back against the booth. The fact that she’d had this exact conversation with Marlene and Mary a countless number of times was not lost to her. She just hadn’t pictured James playing this role before. “You’re going to worry about me?”

“Yes. Drives Sirius mad, but I can’t really help it.”

“No, no, no,” She shook her head. “That’s my thing. I worry about people, they don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Mary would call the police if I didn’t show up after telling her that I’m on my way home.”

“That’s fine.” James nodded, “I’m still going to drive you home though.” And he genuinely didn’t seem like he was flirting with her, so she had no rebuttal. Though she wasn’t sure that she would have argued too much if he had he been flirting with her.

“Alright, I’ll just say thank you then.”

“Brilliant.” He grinned and then stood up, pulling his bag onto his shoulder as he did. “I’ll see you at nine then. Goodluck with your homework.”

“Have fun at practice,” She waved, and then started gathering all her stuff.

oOoOoOo

Nine came rather quickly. She’d holed up in her usual spot, making sure to put her bag in the seat next to her so that no one could come up and plop themselves down and then make fun of her for being frightened into saying ‘oh goodness.’ She finished her web design work, and she finished an essay and then went over some notes from the show and then she looked up and it was 8:50.

She was most surprised by the lack of nerves that she was feeling. Her stomach was calm (and that was a relief after the day she’d had.) Her palms were dry, her heart was calmly beating _and_ where it should be. She took a deep breath and waited for the nerves to come, for the confusion to sweep over her and make her uncomfortable and anxious.

But it didn’t happen. She just started packing up her supplies and then headed to the exit, knowing that he’d be waiting for her and with no part of her wanting to turn around and run in the opposite direction.

What a change that was from this morning where Marlene had to drag her into the writer’s room.

When she stepped outside and saw him leaning against the side of what she assumed was his car, she smiled. He was looking down at his phone, he wasn’t looking at her. His hair was mused, his glasses were sliding down his nose, he was in joggers and an old jersey and he was smiling slightly at whatever it was that he was looking at and Lily stood at the top of the stairs for a moment and waited for those negative feelings to come back.

But if they weren’t there before, when he wasn’t there and she was alone with her thoughts, then they weren’t going to come now. She found that she was just happy to see him there.

She was very happy to see him there. And that didn’t make her too nervous either, a little bit, but she figured that was understandable.

She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and then he slipped his phone into his pocket, so she figured that he’d been texting her.

She grinned at that too, and then started down the stairs.

“There you are,” James grinned, catching sight of her before she was in front of him. “Get some stuff done?”

“More than I thought I would.” She nodded. He pushed off his car as she approached and then turned around and opened her door for her. “Thank you,” She said, moving her bag around so that she could slide on to the car seat. James nodded and closed the door behind her before jogging to the other side of the car and getting into the driver’s seat.

He started the car and glanced over at her before putting it in gear. “You know, I wasn’t sure that you were still going to be here.”

“Surprise,” She deadpanned, pulling her plait out and putting her hair tie around her wrist.

“I mean I shouldn’t be surprised, you said that you were going to be here.”

“No, it’s fine. I was surprised too.” She shrugged, looking over at him as he pulled onto the road. It was dark outside, so his face was mostly shadows, but she saw him smile nonetheless.

It didn’t take too long to get to her flat by car. It sort of made her rethink not wanting to have a car while living in the city. Sort of. Though the train was loads cheaper, so she’d probably stick with it for a while longer.

He pulled up to the concrete and put the car in park. “Thanks for not making me worry about you.”

Lily rolled her eyes and pressed her lips together to keep from smiling to widely. “Thank you for driving me home.” She took a deep breath and looked over at him. “And for other stuff.”

“Other stuff?” He asked, his hand in his hair.

“Yeah. Other stuff.” She didn’t care to elaborate just then. She’d never before felt so emotionally stunted around someone before.

“Alright.” He chuckled, she could hear that there were some nerves behind its mirth.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” She said, not answering the question that he wanted to ask. She wasn’t even sure what she would say she was thanking him for exactly. For not holding her to the kiss? For being so calm about everything while she was freaking out? For understanding that she couldn’t just flip flop her feelings around so quickly? For all of it, really.

“At the studio, yeah.” He nodded. “Five thirty.”

“Yes, five thirty.” She nodded and then reached for the door handle.

“G’night, Lily.”

“Good night, James.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews give you superpowers!


	7. Chapter 7

_James: Your chariot awaits._

That’s what he had texted her while she watched him from the top of the stairs.

_Lily: Do you frequently refer to your car as a chariot?_

Because she couldn’t just let that go.

Of course, he had already dropped her off, so she was replying after the fact, and when she didn’t need to. She knew that. She didn’t have to initiate conversation with him, but she did, and about ten minutes later, he replied.

_James: Only when it’s being used to escort pretty girls around the city_

“Who’s got you all smiley?” Mary asked, walking out of her room with a towel wrapped around her hair.

“What?” Lily asked, looking up from her phone and doing her best to stop smiling so widely.

Mary only smirked and walked over to the oven to peek in at something she must have put in before taking a shower. “If you don’t tell me than I’m going to assume that it’s James and then I’ll have to tease you.” She peeked back at Lily, who was standing there, fiddling with her phone and pressing her lips together. “Oh shit, you’re talking to James right now? Marlene texted me earlier and said that she had to _drag_ you into the writer’s room this morning because you didn’t want to see him, and now you’re grinning at your phone like a loon because of the same boy?”

“I could also do without the commentary, Mary.”

“I thought you didn’t like this boy.” Mary narrowed her brow and pushed her towel back a ways.

“That was last weekend.” Lily shrugged. “We’ve been friends now for like… four or five whole days.” This was said sarcastically, because it wasn’t lost on her how crazy everything was and how quickly everything had changed. Her feelings didn’t normally change this much, this quickly. She’d changed her mind about people before, for better or worse, but it had always taken quite some time. Bit by bit she started to change her opinion, not all at once. Smiles that she used to find as jarring and confusing weren’t suddenly meant to make her stomach clench in excitement.

“You like him then?” Mary asked, tilting her head forward as though she were trying to be careful with her question, unsure of how Lily was going to react to it.

“Did Marlene or Emmeline tell you that I kissed him last night?”

“No,” Mary shook her head. “No they didn’t, and I’ll shout at them both for that later, but…” She tilted her head back and forth and made a face. “You’ve kissed people you know less than James while drunk before.”

“Yeah, but this is different.”

“It is different.” Mary agreed. “What was it like?”

“The kiss?” Lily shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t remember it really, just that it happened. It was a quick peck more than anything really.”

“And how did he react?”

“I left immediately afterward-“

“No, today, you git. How did he react _today_?”

Lily rolled her eyes and shrugged. “He was completely understanding. And calm. Which I was not.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Good thing one of you kept your head.”

“Seems to be a theme with us.”

“Did you just refer to you and James as an ‘us’?” Mary quirked a brow and pursed her lips.

“Not in the sense that you’re implying.” Lily crossed her arms and then felt her phone buzz again. Mary must have heard it because she gave Lily an expectant look, which Lily ignored.

“Well don’t keep the boy waiting on my account. You talk to me all the time,” She waved her hand off. Lily shook her head and clicked on her phone while walking toward her room.

“Fine, but don’t mock me too much or I’ll start making you sweat about Emmeline.”

“I get to tease you as much as I’d like. It’s how our friendship works, Lils.” Mary called after her.

_James: You’re not correcting me this time, so either you rolled your eyes and tossed your phone aside or you’ve silently accepted me calling you pretty_

_Lily: Do you remember my telling you that you make everything more difficult than it needs to be?_

_James: I remember that, yes. You said that right before you kissed me._

_Lily: I could still toss my phone aside you know_

_James: Is it arrogant if I say that I don’t think you will??_

_James: Though I also understand that you might not respond now just because I said that_

_James: I know what you meant now_

_Lily: About you making things difficult?_

_James: Yeah. But you know I’m a git so_

_Lily: Does that mean I’m willing to put up with it tho?? No._

_James: Fair. So next time I tell you that you’re pretty, I won’t comment on how you react_

_Lily: I’m an inherently stubborn person. Most of what I do is to be contrary_

_James: Now you sound like Sirius_

_Lily: He has told me that we’re kindred spirits_

_James: What does that say about me?_

_Lily: That you fancy a girl who’s similar to your best mate? You have a type I guess_

_James: Look at you talking about how I fancy you_

_James: I realize that I just did it again, but I can’t stop myself_

_Lily: That’s becoming apparent_

Lily wasn’t usually much of a texter, she was horrible with her phone and normally texting for too long stressed her out. But she still stayed up until almost two in the morning texting James before she remembered that she still hadn’t showered or eaten anything since she’d gotten home.

Her cheeks hurt from smiling and she felt a bit foolish, but one was allowed to feel foolish every now and then, weren’t they? Otherwise, what was the point?

oOoOoOo

“Wishing you all a good evening, I’m Lily Evans.”

“And I’m James Potter. We’ll see you on Wednesday.”

The red light started flashing and Lily smiled over at James while a few people clapped for the end of another successful show.

“Good job everyone!” Amelia called out, pulling her headset down onto her shoulders. “That was a fantastic show!”

“Pancakes!” Emmett called out and no one contested that, so they all started packing up the set so they could go to the breakfast diner.

“ _We’ll see you on Wednesday,”_ James muttered under his breath, shaking his head, as he stood up from the desk and loosened his tie. “I’ve got to have a better sign off than that,” He said at a normal volume, looking over at Lily. He didn’t seem to notice that she’d already been looking at him.

“There’s nothing wrong with keeping things simple when it comes to the sign off.” Lily assured him, also standing up and pulling the clip out of her hair.

“Sure, but I can be simple without sounding daft.” Lily laughed.

“You didn’t sound daft.”

“You’re just being nice.”

“I don’t do that when it comes to the show, James.” She reminded him. “If I don’t like something that you’re doing, I’ll let you know. For example, you were playing with your hair too much at the start of the show.”

He considered her for a moment and then nodded. “I knew that I was doing it too much, but then I kept thinking about it and that just made me do it more somehow.”

“What were you nervous about?” Lily asked, because he hadn’t seemed nervous since his first show.

“I don’t know,” He shrugged, his hand in his hair again. He realized where it was and scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Last week there wasn’t time to get nervous, everything was happening so fast. But it’s been three days since our last show and I just let myself get in my head I guess.” He shook his head.

“It happens to everyone,” She reached out and touched his arm. “Now go and get changed so that we can go and get some waffles and bacon,” She grinned and then turned around and walked toward her office (closet.)

When she was coming out, James was standing with Marlene and Emmett on the opposite wall. “I know that we told you it was a celebratory thing, but we really just do this every Monday.” Emmett was telling him. “Tradition and all that.”

“You started this tradition,” Marlene smirked at him.

“I’m very proud of that too,” Emmett nodded.

“You lot ready to go?” Lily asked, tucking her hair behind her ear as she stopped in front of them.

“Yep, just waiting on you.” Marlene smiled stepping up and linking their arms together.

The crew always crowded the small diner, but there was always space enough for everyone to sit down. They all had their own spots by this point too, though James joined Marlene, Emmett, Amelia and Lily this time.

It was strange for Lily to be seated across from Emmett and James, and not even because she was used to being seated across from Emmett and Amelia, but because it was strange seeing Emmett and James next to each other. James had avoided Emmett for the first half of last week, and then Emmett wasn’t at Friday’s show because of his rugby game. Emmett had been at James’ party, but Lily had been with James all night, and they hadn’t interacted so far as she knew.

It was a good strange though. She figured that the two of them would be good friends. She saw James narrow his eyes at her, having caught her staring and she couldn’t help but smile even as she averted her gaze.

Soon they all had their food and Emmett was telling them about his last game and Lily wasn’t surprised to see James jump in, and before too long they were having their own conversation and Marlene was telling Amelia and Lily about some stupid thing or another that Benjy and Bertram had gotten into.

Mary and Emmeline showed up after about an hour and pulled chairs up to the end of their booth. Mary sometimes joined them on Monday evenings if she wasn’t drowning in course work, or if she hadn’t eaten yet. Emmeline said that it was both that had led them here tonight.

“Lo, James.” Mary said, reaching out to shake his hand. He opened his mouth to say something, but she beat him to it. “I’m sober Mary, much more high-strung and lucid than my counterpart, drunk Mary.” He laughed and shook her hand.  

Emmett was the first to leave, which Lily thought was strange until he mentioned a girl named Pip. Apparently, Mary knew her, but Lily hadn’t heard anything about her till now but almost everyone teased him as he walked off from the table with a red face.  

Emmeline and Mary left next, off to the library to study for an exam they both had the next morning.

And then Amelia’s boyfriend came and picked her up.

And then Marlene kissed Lily on the cheek and left without giving any reason aloud. Though Lily knew the reason due to the wink that Marlene threw in as she picked up her bag.

“Don’t stay out too late, kids.” Marlene called out as she walked out of the diner. A few people who were still there and part of the crew called back to her, but Lily felt her face heat up anyway, knowing that Marlene had been talking to her.

Lily picked up her fork and picked at what was left of her waffles. James had ordered a second batch of pancakes a few minutes ago and they looked much better than Lily’s cold waffle. She was debating stealing one of them when he broke the silence.

"So what's your deal with football anyway?" James asked, causing Lily’s brows to shoot up her forehead.

"What's my deal with it?" She asked, taking a small bite of her waffle. "Nothing."

"That's a lie. Everyone in this school follows along in a manner that could be considered religious."

"Marlene doesn't watch it either."

He shrugged and took another bite. "Mary and Emmeline do. Emmett and Amelia do." She shrugged as he had and he smirked at her. "I just don't understand why you go out of your way to avoid football related things."

"Who says that I do that?"

"You did." He grinned, pointing a finger at her. She leaned back and narrowed her eyes. "At the party. You told me that it was hard to go around a football obsessed school and not care about the sport at all."

"I didn't say it was hard to not care about it." She argued, fiddling with her fork.

"You said something like that."

"Well I don't know." She shrugged, even though that wasn't really the truth.

"Did you date a football player in secondary?" He asked causing her to scoff. He grinned at that.

"No. I didn't date football players in secondary." She said as though she was horrified by the idea. "Still don't," She added, for his benefit. He just kept grinning at her.

"Well then what is it? Where does your hatred for the game come from?" He was being dramatic, and she rolled her eyes.

"I don't hate the game." She huffed. "I'm actually pretty decent at it, I just don't-"

"You realize that that's the second time that you've said that," He interrupted, and she frowned.

"Said what?"

"That you're pretty good at football." He said, his grin gaining a mischievous edge to it. "You know I'm going to have to ask you to prove it now."

" _Now_ now?” She asked. He nodded. “I'm not going to prove it now. It’s almost ten o’clock and I’m tired."

"You keep mentioning it though, you  _have_ to prove it." He kept smiling at her. "I mean, unless you're lying. Trying to impress me or something."

She was quite easy to bait. That had always been true. It had almost worked when he'd said nothing but 'prove it.' Because she knew that she could damn well prove it, and even if she  _wasn't_  completely sure, she probably still would have been tempted. But then he had to go and suggest that she was lying. That she was trying to impress him. And that was just ridiculous.

"I am most definitely not trying to impress you by off-handedly mentioning that I used to play football." She snapped. "And fine, I will prove it," She stood up and tossed her fork onto the table. She was pulling her bag over to her, when she heard James laugh. She frowned.

"Lily sit down and let me finish my pancakes at least." She looked back at him and then down at his pancakes.

"Fine. But I’m taking one of them.” She said, and then did just that. He laughed as she reached for the syrup and started to drown her stolen pancake in it.

"Please, I want you to take it." He said sarcastically, though he did nothing to try and get it back.

oOoOoOo

She honestly didn't know why she'd agreed to this, though the adrenaline pumping through her system had gotten rid of any and all thoughts of being tired. She might be able to go home and finish up an essay or two after this. She had other things that she needed to be doing now, but instead she was at the football stadium with James, with a much too determined look on her face and her arms crossed over her chest while she marched along beside him.

She was too competitive. She knew that. But knowing that you were too competitive, did nothing to help you to stop being that way. It only made sure that you knew you were being an idiot the entire time you were being too competitive.

"Alright, so you can back out of this whenever you want," James said, almost as if he knew that every time he said something like that, her resolve only grew stronger. “Everyone plays football in primary and I don’t want you to accidentally hurt yourself or anything-“

"I'm not going to back out," She snapped.

"You know, I kind of had a feeling that you were going to say that." He turned his head to grin at her over his shoulder and then started jogging toward the side of the field where there were a few bins full of footballs.

He took out a ball and smacked his hand against it a couple of times before dropping it in front of him and slowly, almost lazily, dribbling it over to her. "So, what are you going to show me exactly?" He asked, kicking the ball a bit harder so that it rolled along the artificial turf, and toward her feet. She lifted one of her legs and comfortably stopped the ball with the ball of her foot. She was glad that she’d put her trainers on after the show. "Are you going to-"

"Make another joke about me scoring on you," She dared him, quirking a brow. He laughed, remembering what he’d said to her back in the pub the other weekend. She grinned at him while rolling her foot back, causing the ball to go back as well and then roll onto the top of her foot. She pulled up her knee, sending the ball into the air and then dribbled the ball on the tops of her knees, only twice and then kicked the ball back over to him. He caught it with his hands, his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her. "You're not supposed to touch it with your hands, Mr. Center Forward."

James laughed and tossed it back to her. She didn't catch it with her hands, she couldn't after what she'd just said. She took a step to the side and stopped it with her thigh. She messed around with it again for a bit. "I haven't done this in forever," She said, almost smiling as the muscle memory took over with sequences that had once been second nature.

"Alright, I'm going to have to ask you to explain yourself." He said, watching her feet. She stopped the ball again and kicked it back to him.

"I'm here to prove I'm pretty good, not to explain anything." She said. He kept the ball and gave her a look. "Well obviously I used to play," She shrugged, motioning for him to kick the ball back to her. He complied.

"If you used to play then why don't you even watch the games now? Do you watch the girl’s team? You're friends with Hestia and Gwen, right?"

"I don't watch football and I don't play anymore." She said, and then swung her foot back and kicked the ball down the field and toward the goal. It wasn't hard to make it in of course, as there was no one blocking, and they weren't more than a quarter of the way down the field.

"When did you play?"

She shook her head and then shrugged. "Always."

"Well now I'm just confused." He shook his head. "You can't just not love something suddenly. Not after playing your whole life. And you have to love something to do it your whole life."

"I did love it I guess." She said. "There were a few things that happened that just… well I don't much like it anymore."

"I don't believe that." James said, taking a few steps toward her.

"Look, I don't want to sound like a cliché or anything, but…" She clenched and unclenched her fists. She didn't like talking about this, and she wasn't  _good_ at talking about it either. "I don't know. I don't have any brothers and my sister just rejected everything that I showed interest in after we were ten. So football was this thing that I did with my dad. He coached the team when I was little- I already told you that he played here when he was in uni."

"You did tell me that." He nodded.

"Well he uh- He died a few years ago and it's just not that fun anymore." She said, her words coming out a bit rushed. In her head it all made sense, but when she tried to explain things to other people, she felt as though her explanation didn't make sense or that it wasn't enough. But when she looked up at James, he wasn't looking as though he was expecting more of an explanation, he just had his lips pressed together and a solemn look on his face.

"I finished up the season after he passed because I, well I felt like I had to but after that…" She trailed off and shrugged her shoulders.

"I think I can understand that." He said after a moment. "I mean if he made you fall in love with the game,"

"It was what we did together. Almost every weekend we would go out and play and we were big supporters of our local team." She grinned and ran a hand through her hair. "But I never loved it, not like he did anyway. It was always just fun for me. And if I was good it was because I wanted to impress him- but that starts to get into the relationship that I had with my sister and how competitive we were for our parent's attention." She shook her head.

"Well as an only child I don't quite understand that, but I've heard sibling horror stories."

"So yeah, that's why I don't watch you play football," She tried to smile since she didn't want to make everything heavy. She wasn't good at dealing with heavy for too long. At least not when she was the one who people were paying attention to.

"You know that's not why I was asking-"

"Oh that’s definitely why you were asking." She interrupted. "I'm actually pretty sure that you took my saying that I don't watch football as some kind of insult."

"Alright I might have, but I'm very full of myself and it's hard not to. But don't you miss it? At the very least, parts of it?"

"Of course I do," She said. She missed taking over the couch on Saturdays with her dad and covering the coffee table in snacks while they tried to watch too many games at once. She missed the rides home after the games when they would go over the game together in exhaustive detail- quite similar to how she went over the show after every airing. She missed having him help her learn a new skill, and she missed the feeling she got whenever she'd make a goal, but she got that feeling from her show now. "And I still catch bits and pieces of the games. They're usually on wherever I am, I just don't get into them like I used to."

"You don't miss playing?"

She shrugged, "Sometimes. But I'm not in great shape anymore and I really love what I'm doing now with the show. Playing football was never what I was going to do."

"It's what I'm going to do." She grinned at how sure he sounded.

"I have no doubt." She said, turning away to look around the empty stadium. "How do you play in front of all these people? And then the cameras are on you as well." She shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself just at the thought of it.

"Well, you gotta put on a good show for them." He said, and she was glad that he seemed to understand that she wanted to let the subject drop from her for the time being. “Actually, you have to block it out almost completely otherwise you end up choking in front of everyone.”

"I can't argue with you there," She grinned and let her arms drop back to her sides.

"That's a first." He smirked, and Lily smiled a bit wider.

"I can't help myself most of the time. I have to argue. It's just what I do."

"I've noticed." He assured her. And he took a few steps toward her again. He was standing right in front of her when he stopped, and she could feel her heart rate pick up again. It seemed to do that around him a lot. And she kept feeling surprised to realize that it wasn't a panicky feeling so much as an excited feeling.

She let out a huff and nodded. "Yeah, well you argue back otherwise I’d have nothing to contest," She shrugged.

"I suppose you’re right," He said, reaching up to push his glasses up his face. "You think I might be able to ask you out now?"

She bit her lip and looked down at her feet. "Didn’t I just tell you that I don’t date football players?"

“Well sure, but you said nothing about the singular football player.” He hesitantly reached out and tapped his fingers against hers.

She laughed quietly through her nose. “You’re ridiculous.”

"Well that's never not going to be true, if I'm being perfectly honest with you." She looked up to smile at him again and was surprised, though perhaps she shouldn't have been, when he leaned down and kissed her.

This kiss was nothing like before. It wasn't short and simple and chaste, or over before it even started, but instead it was a proper kiss. Her arms wrapped around his neck fairly quickly as she melted into it, whatever nerves and hesitation that had still been bouncing around in her head or in her stomach were gone now, if only for a moment. And then he wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her close against his chest and she swore that she was floating.

It could have been a few moments or perhaps an entire lifetime before they pulled back and Lily felt her feet fall back to the earth. She curled her toes inside of her trainers and looked down as her arms slid down from around his neck, her hands pausing on his shoulders.

“Well I’m glad that I read that right,” James’ voice sounded light and like there were bells ringing within his words. He dropped his forehead down against hers, his hands on her hips.

“I know we were just talking about how I like to argue, but I’m going to have to agree with you about that.” He laughed and pulled back to press another kiss against her hairline. She looked up and him and was nearly blinded by the smile that greeted her.

“I’m so glad to hear that.” He reached up and pushed a lock of her hair back, which she thought was funny and a little surprising since she expected him to reach for his own hair. But she couldn’t say that she disliked the feeling of his fingertips brushing over her cheek.

“Alright, alright,” She shook her head and took a step back. “You are quite a distraction; did you know that?” He laughed and held his hands up as he shrugged.

“My car is out back, I’ll take you home.” He said, reaching out for her hand. She looked at his outreached hand for a moment, feeling as though her chest was full of bubbles.

“You mean my chariot?” She asked, lacing her fingers with his and tilting her head at him.

“I didn’t want you to make fun of me for another two hours, so I wasn’t going to call it that again.” He pressed his lips together, but he was still smiling as he leaned down to pick up their bags before leading her toward the exit.

“I’ll find other things to tease you about.”

“So I should just lean into it then? Just let it happen?”

“I would if I were you.”

“No you would not.” He laughed, and Lily laughed as well.

“No, I wouldn’t.” She agreed.

She was home before long and she was sort of glad to find that she had the flat to herself for a while longer. She fell back on to the sofa and pulled out her phone. She was unsurprised to see that she had two new messages from James.

_James: I never actually asked you out_

_James: what are you doing after wed show?_

She smiled as she responded.

_Lily: I guess I'm going out with a football player_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's that! Next chapter is a bunch of fluff. Leave me a review and let me know what you think!


	8. Chapter 8

It didn't take long for things to between James and Lily to turn into more than one date after a weekday show. And while her nerves didn't just evaporate, as she worried about everything normally, she never felt like hiding from James or shrugging him off or giving him polite smiles as means of a deterrence. Quite the opposite really. She found herself far more inclined to hide  _with_ James and snog him.

And they did quite a bit of hiding, because she wasn't too keen on anyone posting any photos of the two of them and giving actual credibility to the whole,  _#jily_ nonsense. Of course, after a few weeks, it wasn't nonsense so much as it was true, but still, she didn't want anyone to know that they were right. At least not yet. And James, keen as he had been about posting that first picture of the two of them, was in agreement. He didn't seem to want to walk their new relationship into the spotlight now that it was actually a relationship.

After a couple of months though, it became just unreasonable to hide, and while there was a certain minority that freaked out, most people seemed to have already assumed that they were dating and weren't surprised at all.

Sirius was another person who hadn't been surprised at all by the change in James and Lily's relationship. Though he did love to give her a hard time about it whenever he could. Including this morning.

"Looking good, red." He said, walking into the kitchen of the house he shared with James. Lily was clad in one of James' t-shirts and a pair of leggings, and she was frying up some eggs while making coffee and toast.

She looked over her shoulder at him and scoffed. "At least I'm wearing more than you are."

"I actually live here," He reminded her, grabbing a mug from the shelf and going to wait by the coffee pot. "Unlike some interlopers I know." He gave her a pointed look and she returned the favor.

"You know, you're awfully ornery in the morning."

"Well maybe it's because I couldn't get to sleep last night. Seems like some kind of ghost has moved in above my room. Always moaning about and causing a ruckus."

Lily felt her cheeks heat up at the thought of Sirius having heard anything of the sort, but she shook her head. "We didn't even- we were studying last night." She muttered, turning back to the stove.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter and then picked up the coffee pot, helping himself. "What is it that you were studying? Anatomy?"

"Shut up," She muttered, wishing that James hadn't decided to take a shower just then so that he would be down here to properly tell off his mate. Or apologize, she wasn't sure which was appropriate here. Probably both.

"I mean don't get me wrong, I'm all for Prongs getting some, and he's been much more tolerable since you've come round to the idea of-"

"Letting him woo me?" She interrupted, not wanting to know what it was that he had been about to say.

He laughed again and then there was a mug of coffee on the counter next to the stove and Sirius was leaning against the counter next to her. "Yeah. Thank goodness for that," He said, winking at her, adding just a slight emphasis to the word 'goodness.'

She and Sirius were friends now, good friends she liked to think. "I'll have to agree with you there."

"Agree with him about what?" James walked into the kitchen and Lily looked over at him and shrugged at the same moment that Sirius did. "You two aren't allowed to keep secrets from me you know."

"I can do whatever the hell I want to." Sirius said with more bite than was necessary, pushing himself off the counter and walking over to the table, coffee in hand.

"And what's your argument?" James took Sirius's vacated spot against the counter and Lily looked up at him.

"Oh no, his argument works for me too. I can also do whatever I want."

James didn't seem to mind that they didn't tell him what they'd been talking about, because he seemed to like the fact that they were friends. He'd seemed nervous the first couple of times that Lily had hung around with him and Sirius. He'd told her that it was because Sirius had never liked any of his girlfriends before, and her response was that he'd apparently been dating terrible people if absolutely no one liked them.

She hadn't been worried though. She knew that she and Sirius would get along. She'd never had a problem making friends, and Sirius had seemed to have made up his mind about her after their first meeting in the library anyway.

Remus wasn't hard to get along with either. It turned out that the two of them actually did have quite a bit in common, and he wasn't as rough around the edges as James or Sirius. And Peter, who had forgiven her for saying that he wasn't a real person while she'd been drunk, came round to her as well.

And the fact that she got along with his mates was good, because she'd been spending an awful lot of time at his house during the last few months. A lot of time.

She flipped the eggs in the pan and then pulled out a couple plates, getting it all fixed up before walking over to the table and sitting in the chair that she usually sat in.

"You two leaving soon?" Sirius asked as James walked over with their drinks and sat down as well.

"Not real soon, why?"

"Because I want you to leave." He shrugged, taking a piece of James' toast and stuffing it into his mouth. James rolled his eyes.

"You know, you don't have to pretend that you don't love us," Lily said, picking up her fork so she could eat her eggs.

"I'm not pretending that I don't love you, don't be ridiculous. I just want a quiet house to myself for a bit. Remus is at the library with Emmeline and Peter is working at the shop."

"Lily and I won't bother you." Lily could feel her face heating up prematurely as she was a bit worried about what Sirius would say to that, given what he'd said to her earlier. He laughed, and she looked up seeing that he'd been looking at her.

"Your girlfriend knows that's a lie."

"I know no such thing." She said determinedly and shoveled more food into her mouth.

James looked back and forth between the two of them and then sighed, "I'm not going to ask."

"That's for the best." Sirius said, still smirking at Lily's expense. Then he picked up his coffee and now a piece of Lily's toast and headed for the door. "Thanks for breakfast."

"You're most welcome." Lily replied sarcastically.

"You know he's just messing around, right?"

"Sweet heart, it's been a few months, of course I know he's just messing around."

"Right." He nodded. "I've been apologizing for him most of my life. It's just habit."

"I'm sure it's one I'll pick up," She grinned, reaching for her coffee and taking a sip. She didn't realize that James was staring at her until after she put it down and he hadn't said anything in response. "What?" She asked, narrowing her brow slightly.

He shrugged one of his shoulders and smirked, turning back to his meal. "Nothing. I just like it when you casually mention that you're going to be hanging around for a while."

She rolled her eyes, because even though she definitely did plan on sticking with James as long as she could, she didn't like him having turned her slight at Sirius into something sappy. She wasn't a sappy person. "A habit only takes thirty days to form, James." She huffed out dramatically.

He laughed, "Well alright then, I've got at least thirty more days with you. I'll take it." She waited a moment before looking at him, wanting to make sure that he was looking at his food first so that she didn't get caught. She got caught quite a bit, but she didn't get caught slightly more. She was almost always watching him it seemed. And the small smirk on his lips let her know that he knew she was looking, but she didn't really mind so long as he was willing to play along.

"So what should we do today?" Lily asked, "We don't have to be at the studio until four."

He shrugged. "I don't know, but I guess Sirius wants us out of the house. We could go get you a proper jersey for the next game you come to. You can support me in more than just spirt." She rolled her eyes.

"We don't need to buy one," She said, pushing her plate away and pulling her coffee forward. "I can just wear one of your old ones or something."

He looked over at her and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know if you're being cute or if you just genuinely don't want to spend money on a football jersey."

She pursed her lips and looked at him. "Clearly it's the later."

"Right because you don't like being cute." He rolled his eyes to mock her and she shoved his shoulder.

"I'm cute all the time thanks, I just don't want you to live under false assumptions." She took a sip of her coffee and then leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. "You know I like you though, that's enough."

"You don't just like me," He grinned, turning his head and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "You told me just the other day that you love me." She hummed quietly and then nodded.

"I did say that, and I suppose I do."

"Always so reluctant."

"I'm not reluctant." Lily argued, "I'm just a bit difficult at times." James laughed at that.

"You were difficult for about twelve hours three months ago and that's it." She rolled her eyes again.

"Fine. But I'm not reluctant. I'm just not a sap."

"But you love me."

"That's starting to be questionable." She warned him, turning her head and putting her chin on his shoulder now. She didn't remember falling in love with him, she just realized one day that she did so of course she was just giving him a hard time now.

"Nah," He shook his head, kissing her cheek now.

"Nah," She agreed, reaching up her hand to tangle into his hair. "I love you." She said quietly, turning his head so he could kiss him.

"I love you too," He said, cupping her cheek and pulling her close. She still got a rush every time he pulled her close.

However, their kiss didn't last for too long before they were interrupted.

"Honestly you two," Sirius's voice came from the other side of the kitchen and James chuckled as he pulled away. Lily slouched back in her chair and tried not to feel disappointed. James would probably be able to tell and then he'd tease her about it.

"Sorry mate." He stood up to clean up their dishes. "I can't keep her off me." He ended up teasing her anyway.

Lily clicked her tongue. "Bastard." She muttered and then got up herself. "Keep that up and see where it gets you." She warned him.

"You've told him that you love him," Sirius said and Lily looked over at him. At least he was wearing a shirt this time. "He's going to be insufferable now."

"How long were you listening?" Lily narrowed her eyes at him.

"Not long, Red. You think James didn't come running to tell me the moment he got the chance?" James whipped the dishrag at him, but Sirius didn't seem to mind. He just laughed and tossed it at Lily.

"Of course he did," She grinned. "He's completely smitten with me."

"I am." He nodded. "Glad to be so too."

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there," Sirius held up a finger and shook his head slowly.

"You came back down here." Lily shrugged. "If he wasn't to be sweet on me, I'm not going to stop him."

"But you won't return the favor." James teased, and Lily shrugged.

"I'm plenty sweet, just not sappy."

"Thank god," Sirius said. He looked over at James. "You know, I might end up liking her more if you keep this up." Lily smirked and then looked at Sirius.

"Careful, he gets sappier if you mention the fact that I'll be sticking around for long enough for that to happen."

"I don't even mind you two ganging up on me, I'm in love and I don't care what you two say." He grinned at the both of them and then frowned. "Which is a weird thing to say to your girlfriend I'm realizing." Lily shrugged and Sirius laughed.

"Alright, come on boys, I've decided that we're all going to the library to study with Remus and Em. I've done very little of my homework all weekend."

"You told me that you were studying last night," Sirius said, feigning innocence.

"Oh hush up," Lily snapped. "Go and get your books." She pointed in the direction of the room. "Both of you," She looked at James as well. He sighed and then left the kitchen to do as he was told.

Things had changed quickly, and while Lily normally wasn't good at adjusting to change, this was a good change and she was too excited and hopeful to think that it wasn't worth the adjustment. She smiled as she thought about what her daily life had turned into and then left the kitchen as well to get dressed and collect her books.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Let me know what you think! What were your favorite parts? Who was your fav? I had so much fun writing this fic, thanks to everyone who was here for the ride (and the re-write.)

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews would be fantastic <3


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